In its judgment of 28 August 2026, Case No. 21 Cdo 2525/2025, the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic (the “Supreme Court”) considered a case involving an employee who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, refused to undergo testing and wear the prescribed respiratory protective equipment. The employer subsequently instructed her to leave the workplace. The employee refused to comply with this instruction, and the situation ultimately resulted in her being escorted from the workplace by the municipal police. The employer subsequently terminated her employment with immediate effect pursuant to Section 55(1)(b) of the Labour Code.
Although the Court of Appeal concluded that the employee had breached her employment duties by failing to comply with the employer’s lawful instruction to leave the workplace, it did not consider the breach to be of a particularly gross nature. The Supreme Court disagreed with this assessment of the seriousness of the breach.
The Supreme Court emphasised that an employee’s subordination to the employer’s managerial and organisational authority is one of the fundamental characteristics of dependent work, and that the employer’s trust in the employee’s reliability and willingness to comply with lawful instructions is essential to the employment relationship. In this case, the employee refused to comply with the lawful instruction to leave the workplace in an entirely deliberate and demonstrative manner, allowing the situation to escalate to the point where the municipal police had to intervene.
The Supreme Court therefore concluded that, by failing to comply with the employer’s instruction to leave the workplace, the employee had breached her duties arising from legal regulations relating to the work performed in a particularly gross manner. The employer could not reasonably be required to continue employing her, even for the duration of the notice period. This conduct was, in itself, sufficient to justify immediate termination of employment, making it unnecessary to assess the other conduct cited in the notice of immediate termination.
HR Legal Update 09/2026 download here.