On February 10, 2007, the plaintiff wanted to go to the defendant’s nightclub in Oldenburg together with three friends. The door man denied entry to the plaintiff, saying that he had received order from his boss not to let enter any foreigner. The plaintiff consulted a counselling office that organised a meeting between him and the nightclub owner. During that meeting, the owner promised the plaintiff that such  refusal would not happen again. The following night, the plaintiff wanted to check if the owner’s commitment had been respected, but he was denied entry once more.

In principle, the Oldenburg District Court acknowledged that there had been a violation of the AGG. However, the court reduced the plaintiff’s compensation, claiming that he had tried to enter the nightclub in the context of a “testing procedure”. The plaintiff wanted to prove that the discotheque practiced racist conduct and could therefore have foreseen the exclusion. “The conscious and accepted causation of a discriminatory act by the plaintiff” leads to halving the financial compensation.
Had the plaintiff tried to enter the nightclub not as a test person but as a “normal customer”, the court would have considered a more severe damage.

The court finally decided that the defendant had to pay compensation of 500 €.

Click here to see the whole court decision.