The judgment of the Court of Appeal in Poznań of 13 January 2021, file number III APa 12/20, deals with the difference between the employer’s behavior consisting in disciplining an employee and an activity that may be considered mobbing. In the assumptions of the adjudicating panel, criticism or control, or issuing lawful official orders, cannot be considered a manifestation of mobbing. Similarly, reminding about the timely performance of work, the need to register delays or obtain the signature of superiors on the documentation do not usually constitute a form of harassment of an employee. In the factual state which is the basis for issuing the analyzed judicature, the practice of double signing documents and recording delays was also applied to other collaborators, which does not allow to believe that the claimant became a victim of mobbing. The court also pointed out that for the mobbing to occur, the claimant would have to prove that the employer’s behavior was humiliating or offensive to her dignity.
In addition, the judges ruled that the assessment of whether the employee was harassed and intimidated and whether these activities were aimed at and could have led to or led to an underestimation of his professional suitability, to his humiliation, ridicule, isolation or elimination from the team of colleagues must be based on objective criteria. In a given factual state, the claimant’s position was based on individual feelings, which cannot be related to general practice.
In the court’s ruling, there was also a thesis that the definition of mobbing implies the need to demonstrate not only the unlawfulness of the action, but also its purpose (including: humiliation, ridicule, isolation of the employee) and the possible effects of the employer’s actions (this is about health disorders).
Consequently, the adjudicating panel pointed out that the feature of mobbing is, first of all, the continuity of impact on the employee, which excludes one-off acts beyond the scope of this phenomenon.
Summarizing, therefore, the position of the court of appeal regarding the delineation of the boundary between disciplining an employee and mobbing, it should be concluded that, in the assumption of the judicature, the features, i.e. specific determinants, of mobbing are:
- criticism or control in the scope prohibited under the employment relationship;
- causing humiliation on the part of the employee;
- a goal, such as embarrassing an employee, which is additionally assessed according to objective criteria;
- possible effect in the form of health impairment in the employee;
- continuity of impact on the employee.
Certainly, the judgment of the SA in Poznań contributed to the clarification of the concept used by the legislator in Art. 94 (3) of the Labor Code. Judicature thus fulfills the framework of the statutory definition, influencing the practice of applying the provisions relating to mobbing.
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