Diagnosis in the group chat: When mocking a colleague’s sick note can cost you damages
- Jul 20
- 2 min read
A ward physician is annoyed by a colleague’s short-notice sick note and vents her anger in the medical team’s WhatsApp group – naming the diagnoses of her ill colleague. The Siegburg Labour Court (Arbeitsgericht Siegburg) ordered her to cease and desist and to pay damages (judgment of 22 May 2026, case no. 1 Ca 1741/25, not yet final). The case shows how a mocking chat message can turn into a data protection breach with personal liability. The decisive question: what may be communicated about a colleague’s illness and what may not?
1. The case: A sick note before a weekend shift
At a hospital, several physicians used a shared WhatsApp group to coordinate leave, sick notes and shift cover. A physician in specialist training (Arzt in Weiterbildung) was rostered for a weekend shift, but had himself examined at his own hospital shortly beforehand and then called in sick.
The ward physician had to take over the shift. In the group, she then commented in detail on the diagnoses from that examination and speculated that her colleague was not ill at all; he probably just had „ein Pups quer“ – loosely, “a fart stuck sideways”, a German idiom for a trivial complaint. The colleague saw this as a public humiliation and took the matter to the labour court.
2. The decision: Injunctive relief and damages
The labour court largely upheld the claim. The physician had unlawfully disclosed her colleague’s health data and thereby violated his right of personality (Persönlichkeitsrecht) and his right to the protection of his personal data.
Two claims follow from this: an injunction for the future and compensation for non-material damage under Art. 82 (1) GDPR (in Germany: DSGVO). For the damages claim, it was sufficient for the court that the message ridiculed the illness. The judgment is not yet final.
3. A remarkable detail: the risk of repetition
The claimant has since left the hospital and works elsewhere. The court nevertheless affirmed the risk of repetition required for the injunction: the physician had trivialised her conduct in court and shown no insight. Similar messages could therefore not be ruled out in future.
How a party conducts itself in the proceedings can therefore directly influence their outcome.
Unsure what may be said about sick notes in your team chat?
In a messenger group, a single sentence can separate legitimate shift planning from a data protection breach.
If you want to set up rules for work-related chat groups as an employer, or want to know as an affected employee what claims you may have, I offer you a short, free initial assessment. In that conversation, we will clarify how your situation is to be assessed and which next steps make sense.
