Lockdown victims have little chance of compensation

Created: 03/03/2022, 16:16

Salina Worm, Managing Director of Schloss Diedersdorf, stands in front of her father's castle.

He sued the state of Brandenburg for insufficient compensation during the Corona closures.

© Annette Riedl/dpa

The forced closures at the beginning of the pandemic came as a shock to many industries, despite government aid.

The BGH is now dealing with the first of many lawsuits for compensation.

Karlsruhe – The lockdowns in the corona pandemic have hit many industries hard – but the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) gives those affected little hope of state compensation.

The top civil judges in Karlsruhe doubt that the compensation regulations provided for in the Infection Protection Act are intended for widespread company closures.

That became clear on Thursday in the negotiation of a model case from Brandenburg.

The verdict will be announced on March 17th.

(Ref. III ZR 79/21)

However, the presiding judge Ulrich Herrmann has already said that this may not generally be about state liability, but about a welfare state issue.

The case is of very fundamental importance.

There are a large number of similar court cases nationwide.

In order to stop the spread of the new virus, the federal and state governments took drastic measures to shut down public life in the first wave of the pandemic in March 2020.

Gastronomy also had to close, and hotels were no longer allowed to accept tourists.

Only mulled wine for weeks

This also affected Schloss Diedersdorf, a family-run business with a hotel, several restaurants and a large beer garden south of Berlin.

There are 14 event rooms on the site with a total of 4,000 seats and 100 hotel beds, says Salina Worm, who runs Schloss Diedersdorf alongside her father Thomas.

In the spring of 2020, only mulled wine and beer could be sold to take away for weeks.

"Compared to what we usually do, that's a fraction," says the 21-year-old.

The Infection Protection Act provides for financial compensation in certain cases - but only for someone who has lost earnings "as an excretor, suspect of infection, suspect of illness or as other carrier of pathogens".

Above all, Salina Worm is disturbed by “the unequal treatment that is behind the whole thing”: A company that the authorities close due to a corona case is compensated.

"We acted in accordance with the law and invested a lot of money in hygiene measures," she says.

"We were shut down anyway, and there's no compensation."

compensation demanded

The family received 60,000 euros in emergency aid.

"But one has nothing to do with the other," says Worm.

"And we now had to pay back the emergency aid." With the lawsuit, her father is demanding compensation from the state of Brandenburg for the remaining losses, initially around 27,000 euros.

The exact amount of damage would have to be determined later if the Worms are right.

Attorney Joachim Kummer, who represents the family before the BGH, said at the hearing that his client was claiming a financial disadvantage of 5,438 euros a day - due to lost profits and running costs.

The emergency aid covers just eleven days.

Worm must be compensated even more: Nobody from his company had Corona, but he was still assigned the measures.

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The German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga) complains of devastating consequences across the industry.

"A total of nine months of lockdown and a large number of far-reaching corona measures have torn huge holes in the balance sheets of our entrepreneurs," said a spokeswoman.

From March 2020 to December 2021, the industry lost 73.8 billion euros in real sales.

This corresponds to a minus of 40.3 percent in 2021 and 39.0 percent in 2020.

situation is complex

Does the state have to compensate for this damage?

The situation is too complex for that, says BGH lawyer Guido Toussaint, who represents the state of Brandenburg.

The pandemic also hit industries hard that were not directly affected by closure orders.

And the economic consequences would possibly be much greater if the state had not intervened.

It is not the task of the courts to find an appropriate solution here, but of the legislature.

This was also the view of the Brandenburg Higher Regional Court, which had dismissed Worm's lawsuit in the lower court.

A regulation is reserved for the legislature - "not least because the granting of compensation or compensation claims in mass claims can have far-reaching consequences for state finances," says the judgment of June 1, 2021.

The corona pandemic is “a major damage event that hit and is affecting the whole of society and large parts of the economy”.

The “socially acceptable distribution of the unequal burdens caused by the pandemic” is therefore “a challenge primarily for the welfare state”.

dpa