{"id":58785,"date":"2026-05-04T11:58:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/?post_type=articles&p=58785"},"modified":"2026-05-22T13:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T11:40:15","slug":"ad-2025-no-98-dismissal-of-a-specialist-officer-is-annulled-on-the-basis-of-the-two-month-rule","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/article\/ad-2025-no-98-dismissal-of-a-specialist-officer-is-annulled-on-the-basis-of-the-two-month-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"AD 2025 No. 98 \u2013 Dismissal of a specialist officer is annulled on the basis of the two-month rule"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A specialist officer was summarily dismissed without notice after hitting a conscript in the back of the head during an exercise. The officer said that he had given a friendly pat to calm the conscript, while the conscript experienced it as a punishment and that it was degrading. The Labour Court annulled the dismissal on the basis of the two-month rule, as the officer’s immediate superior had become aware of the incident more than two months before the notice of dismissal was given. <\/em><\/p>\n

The case concerned the summary dismissal of an officer whose duties included training conscripts. The dismissal was based on an incident during a shooting exercise in August 2023. A conscript accidentally shot at the wrong target. The officer told the conscript to bend forward and put his forehead in the officer’s outstretched palm, whereupon the officer with his other hand hit or patted the conscript in the back of the head. The parties disagreed on the details of the incident. The employer claimed that the officer subjected the conscript to physical punishment and humiliation, and that the officer had subsequently provided untrue information and induced others to provide misleading information about the incident with the conscript. The Officers’ union contested the dismissal, claiming that the officer’s actions were a distraction manoeuvre aimed at breaking a dangerous stress reaction in the conscript, not a punishment.<\/p>\n

The incident was brought to the attention of the employer in January 2024, when a conscript described in an anonymous six-month survey that he had been punished by the officer. The employer claimed that it was only then that the employer became aware of what had actually happened. The officer was notified of the dismissal on 29 February 2024 and dismissed on 22 April 2024.<\/p>\n

The dispute in the Labour Court revolved primarily around two main issues: first, whether the two-month rule in Section 18, second paragraph, of the Employment Protection Act prevented the employer from invoking the incident at the shooting range as a reason for the dismissal, and second, whether there was a legal basis for the dismissal.<\/p>\n

According to Section 18(2) of the Employment Protection Act, a dismissal may not, as a general rule, be based solely on circumstances of which the employer was aware more than two months before the notification was given to the employee, unless the overtime was due to the employer’s delay in giving notice or dismissal at the employee’s request or with the employee’s consent, or if there are special reasons for invoking the circumstances. The purpose of the rule is that the employee should not have to hover in uncertainty for a long time about his or her employment. The officer was notified of the dismissal on 29 February 2024, which meant that circumstances that the employer knew about before 29 December 2023 could in principle not be invoked.<\/p>\n

The Labour Court found it proven that the officer’s platoon commander became aware of the incident with the conscript as early as August 2023 after the conscript had raised the matter at the “platoon hour” and the officer had subsequently told the platoon commander about his actions. The employer was thus considered, through the platoon commander, to have been aware of the incident more than two months before the notice of dismissal was given.<\/p>\n

The employer had also claimed that the officer had provided untrue information about the incident and that he had induced the platoon commander to provide misleading information, and that these circumstances were sufficiently ‘fresh’ for the older circumstance \u2013 the incident that took place at the exercise \u2013 to be invoked. The Labour Court, with a narrow majority (four of the court’s seven members), found that the investigation did not provide sufficient support for the fact that the officer had actually provided false information or induced the platoon commander to provide misleading information. Nor did the Labour Court find any special reasons to allow the incident to be invoked at the shooting range despite the fact that the two-month time limit had been exceeded.<\/p>\n

The Labour Court thus annulled the dismissal already because of the two-month rule.<\/p>\n

Three members of the court dissented and claimed that the dismissal should continue. In their opinion, the circumstances of the case provided sufficient support for the officer to induce the platoon commander to give misleading information, which would mean that the employer was entitled to invoke all the circumstances in order to be used as a basis for assessing whether there was a legal basis for the dismissal. The dissenting parties further argued that the officer’s actions at the shooting range, which they assessed as having deliberately hit a conscript in the head, constituted a physical punishment that is unacceptable in any workplace, especially in the Swedish Armed Forces where high demands on judgment and restraint must be set. According to the dissenting parties, the officer had grossly neglected his obligations towards the employer, and there had thus been a legal basis for the dismissal.<\/p>\n

Setterwalls’ comment:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The judgment illustrates the practical significance of the two-month rule for employers. Even if an action may be serious in itself, the employer may lose the opportunity to invoke it if measures are not taken within the right time after the circumstances become known. In this case, it was crucial that the platoon commander, who was the employer’s representative, was informed of the incident in August 2023, but that notification of dismissal was not given until the end of February 2024. The judgment also highlights the importance of the employer being able to prove any newer circumstances that are invoked in order for older circumstances to also be invoked. The recent circumstance must be of such a nature that it can at least form part of the basis for a dismissal acceptable under the law, and there must be some basis for claiming that the new circumstance has occurred. A practical conclusion is that employers who are considering dismissing an employee due to a certain circumstance must ensure that the event is not already known to someone who is to be regarded as an employer representative. It is of great importance that the organisation has clear procedures for employer representatives to promptly report incidents to the people who make decisions on employment issues.\u00a0 Another practical conclusion is that it must be possible to demonstrate the newer circumstance in such a way that it is at least clear that the employer is justified in its assertion including the new circumstance.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":33996,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"article_category":[1043],"class_list":["post-58785","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_category-employment-and-pension-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/58785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setterwalls.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_category?post=58785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}