At the University Hospital Regensburg it is usually about medical precision. In this case it’s 86 minutes. A professor and senior physician in vascular surgery is said to have incorrectly recorded her working hours on October 8, 2025 after a staff meeting. The meeting ended at 11:45 a.m. – but the doctor didn’t clock out until 1:11 p.m. For these approximately one and a half hours, the Free State of Bavaria, as the formal employer, and not the UKR itself, accuses her of intentionally cheating on working hours. The consequence: termination without notice, later supplemented by a regular notice.
Judge Felix Arnold from the Regensburg Labor Court was visibly astonished by the escalation in the hearing on March 29th. The doctor had explained to the minute who she had spoken to during the disputed period: colleagues, patients, a nurse, and that she had then dealt with documents in her office before going home. Arnold’s comment was brief: “This could have been resolved through discussion.”
Formal errors across the board
What makes the case particularly explosive is what went wrong during the termination. The doctor received the dismissal without notice on November 14th, more than five weeks after the incident. The problem: Labor law provides for a two-week notice period for extraordinary dismissals. That had long since passed.
There is also a more fundamental question: Was the medical director of the UKR even allowed to give notice of termination? The doctor concluded the employment contract with the Free State of Bavaria, and there apparently is no clear regulation as to whether the medical director can act on its behalf. The Free State’s lawyer had to admit this in court.
The judge also has doubts about the content. He did not accept an additional justification that the doctor was not allowed to work on her compensatory free time day: that would only be enough for a warning and was not intentional fraud in working hours.
It’s about reputation
The doctor categorically rejects a severance payment. Her lawyer explained in court: “My client is concerned about maintaining her job.” Judge Arnold showed his understanding: management positions in the university sector with appropriate remuneration and development prospects are rare. It’s also about the reputation of a top doctor.
The case takes on another dimension: According to reports from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, there is a serious personnel crisis simmering at the UKR in the background. Up to 40 doctor positions are to be cut, fixed-term contracts will not be extended, and vacancies will not be filled. The assumption could be heard loudly in the audience at the hearing: the accusation of working hours could be a pretext.
It remains to be seen whether this assumption is correct: the actual decision is still pending after the hearing on March 29th, as the state of Bavaria still has the opportunity to comment on the formal errors. That is exactly the point of this case: In the end, the decisive factor might not be whether 86 minutes were actually billed unfairly, but whether the Free State of Bavaria did its homework.
Info
Regensburg Labor Court, hearing March 29, 2026, decision pending, case number Ca 2402/25
This article first appeared in our May-June issue of Human Resources.
Sven Frost is responsible for HR tech, which includes the areas of digitalization, HR software, time and access, SAP and outsourcing. He also writes about recruiting and employer branding. He continues to be responsible for the editorial planning of various special human resources publications.
