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Created on Monday, 17 August 2009 19:24

Last Updated on Friday, 28 December 2012 18:59

Overtime without Activity Report Suffices?

Whoever wants to clean up his finances with self-imposed overtime, will be thwarted by the judgment of LAG Rhineland-Palatine of 10.10.2008 (re 6 Sa 390/08).

An employed master butcher worked 711 hours overtime and wanted to be paid for this. Even though his contractual working time was 40 hours a week, he worded 14 hours a day. As the employer let him know this was crazy, the butcher sued in court. When the court ordered concrete proof of his overtime and the necessity of this extended work, he did not present anything.

The employer is only required to pay for such overtime, when he ordered it or later accepted it or when the need for overtime can be understood by a normal person. Whoever “lives” at his worksite will not have his extended presence credited, when it is not ordered or afterwards accepted. The only imaginable exception to this can be when overtime was necessary to meet the workload. Even when it is assumed that he really worked so long, documentation would be necessary. Undocumented contentions that the employee’s position demand such commitment are irrelevant.