Employee injured doing stunts with illegal fireworks: do you have to keep paying wages?

Employment Law

2 April 2021

Employee injured doing stunts with illegal fireworks: do you have to keep paying wages?

Stelt u zich eens voor: u werkt al jaren met dezelfde zelfstandige. Hij stuurt facturen, factureert btw en heeft een eigen kvk-nummer. Toch krijgt u in 2026 ineens vragen van de Belastingdienst over de aard van uw samenwerking. Hoe heeft het zo ver kunnen komen?

An employee experiments in his free time with making illegal fireworks. Mixing gunpowder goes badly wrong. The employee blows up his hand and is no longer able to work. The employer stops paying wages, because he feels his employee caused his own incapacity for work. Does the employer have a point, or must he continue paying wages?

It is of course not smart to experiment with illegal fireworks in the shed. In this case the employee was seriously injured and was unable to work for the time being. But it also caused a conflict with the employer. It felt unfair to the employer that he had to keep paying wages while the employee had committed such a foolish act. The employee disagreed and went to court.

The law states that the employer must continue paying wages in the event of incapacity for work, unless the employee intentionally caused his own incapacity for work. How is this interpreted? Is experimenting with illegal fireworks so dangerous that it is effectively the same as intent? And does that then also apply to reckless motorcycling or off-piste skiing?

Even though it may feel unjust to the employer, the court must follow the law. In court, the employee stated that his intention was to make fireworks. Of course he did not want to injure his hand! There was therefore no intent, and thus no reason to stop paying wages, the court ruled. The employer may only stop paying wages if the employee intended to become sick/incapacitated for work. That is of course almost never the case.

In this case the employer had to continue paying wages and therefore still had to pay the salary. The employer also had to bear the costs of the proceedings. So stopping the wages ended up being expensive for him.

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De afgelopen jaren stonden in het teken van de Wet VBAR, het wetsvoorstel dat een einde moest maken aan onduidelijkheid over de zzp’er. Het kabinet heeft delen van dat voorstel inmiddels geschrapt. Op het eerste gezicht is dat goed nieuws: minder regels, minder administratieve last. Maar in de praktijk blijven dezelfde toetsen overeind.

“De inhoud van de samenwerking is leidend, niet wat er op papier staat.”

De Belastingdienst handhaaft sinds 1 januari 2025 weer actief op schijnzelfstandigheid. En recente uitspraken van de Hoge Raad bevestigen dat rechters strikt toetsen of er sprake is van ondergeschiktheid en gezagsverhouding.

Voor uw praktijk betekent dit drie dingen. Een: leg de samenwerking duidelijk vast, met aandacht voor de inhoud. Twee: voorkom dat een zzp’er feitelijk werkt als werknemer. Drie: wees voorbereid op een controle, en weet hoe u de relatie kunt herzien als dat moet.

Heeft u vragen over uw concrete situatie? Wij sparren dagelijks met opdrachtgevers over hun zzp-relaties. Vraag een offerte op of bekijk onze Legal Safe abonnementen.