Court case 51 O 513/20 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2020)

The plaintiff was the owner of a flat in a residential complex, where the first defendant was the property manager in charge until 31 December 2019. The second defendant was the external DPO appointed by the property manager. There was a legionella infestation in the residential complex, which also affected the plaintiff's flat. In June 2019, all 97 flat owners were invited to an owner's meeting to discuss, amongst other things, the legionella infestation. The invitation included details on which flats were affected by the infestation, with the plaintiff's name and flat. The plaintiff asked the property manager to redact or remove this information. Although this was not done before the meeting, the meeting notes themselves did not mention either. Consequently, the plaintiff sued the defendants and claimed that he had suffered non-material and material damages, like damage to his reputation. In addition, a potential buyer of his flat had cancelled the purchase due to the information about the legionella infestation he had received from the informed owners. The plaintiff further submitted that the second defendant (the DPO) had admitted the infringement in his email and was therefore also liable on the basis of this admission of guilt. The plaintiff also claimed the the parties had violated the GDPR when passing on his e-mail address to their legal representative without his consent. Furthermore, the plaintiff's email address was visible in the transparent field of a letter sent by the defendant's representative to the plaintiff. The first defendant claimed that the listing of the plaintiff's flat and his name as owner was permissible under data protection law. The disclosure of the email address was also permissible under GDPR. The second defendant argued that as a DPO he was not a controller within the meaning of Article 4(7) GDPR. The Regional Court dismissed the action. The Court decided that the plaintiff was not entitled to claim damages, beacuse there was