Insult or just angry exclamation?
- An employee of the Lidl central warehouse had said “Kurwa” (Polish “whore”) to a colleague.
Whether that should be understood as defamatory was the central question in a process at the Ebersberg district court.
Ebersberg / Anzing
- The 49-year-old Polish employee wanted to close the door of the central warehouse in Anzing in January because it was raining and snowing, he explained with the help of an interpreter.
However, his German colleague responsible for compliance with the corona security measures wanted the door to remain open for ventilation.
This led to a dispute.
According to the indictment, the Pole hit the colleague with the elbow so that he slipped away and injured his knee in the process.
The defendant said in the court that he only raised his arm in defense because he was frightened.
According to his colleague, the defendant grabbed him from the front and pushed him to the side.
Neither did the original statement.
After some back and forth, the injured party left it with the statement "I don't remember." It just happened too quickly.
The guesswork around knee injury
However, his knee hurt for several days and he had to wear a splint.
On top of that, he was released a short time later because the mostly Polish colleagues would otherwise have started a strike.
Another witness claimed that the defendant was standing on the other side of the door, pushing, and that another did not know anything.
"We have now heard four different statements from three people," summarized judge Vera Hörauf.
The exact event can no longer be clarified.
So only the word "Kurwa" was left in the room.
The defendant no longer knows exactly whether he said that, but he considers it to be entirely possible.
The defense attorney explained that "Kurwa" in this context in Polish could only be a general expression of anger about a situation, like the German exclamation "Shit".
If he had wanted to deliberately insult a man, he would have had to use the grammatically correct “ty kurwo” (Polish “you whore”).
This was also confirmed by the interpreter.
After a detailed lecture on the various uses of the word in the Polish language, Judge Vera Hörauf left it at an acquittal.
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