Background
The litigation originated in the Regional Court of Gera and later proceeded to the Thuringian Higher Regional Court. The defendants then filed a complaint against the denial of leave to appeal before the Federal Court of Justice. On July 10, 2026, the Court dismissed that complaint as inadmissible.
The defendants subsequently filed a hearing complaint under § 321a of the German Code of Civil Procedure, asserting that the Court had failed to consider arguments made in their prior filing. They principally referred back to the reasoning supporting their complaint against the denial of leave to appeal, including its reference to a submission filed during the appellate proceedings.
The Court’s Holding
The Federal Court of Justice dismissed the defendants’ hearing complaint as inadmissible and ordered them to bear its costs. Although a hearing complaint was an available procedural remedy under § 321a(1), the defendants failed to satisfy the substantiation requirement in § 321a(2), sentence 5.
The Court explained that the defendants had to identify concrete reasons why dismissal of their earlier complaint as inadmissible could support only the conclusion that the Court had not considered their arguments. Merely pointing back to their previous submissions was insufficient to allege an independent, outcome-determinative violation of the constitutional right to be heard under Article 103(1) of the Basic Law.
The Court added that it had in fact considered the allegedly overlooked argument but regarded it as legally immaterial. Any estimate of the property’s loss in value resulting from an injunction-related restriction on constructing a double garage was impossible because the defendants had neither adequately stated nor credibly substantiated the property’s value.
Key Takeaways
- A hearing complaint must specifically explain an independent and outcome-determinative denial of the constitutional right to be heard.
- Referring back to arguments or filings from earlier proceedings does not, by itself, satisfy § 321a’s substantiation requirement.
- A claimed reduction in property value could not be estimated without an adequately stated and credibly substantiated underlying property value.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that a hearing complaint is not a vehicle for repeating arguments from an unsuccessful procedural challenge. Parties must concretely show that the deciding court failed to consider material submissions and that the omission could have affected the result.
It also illustrates the evidentiary foundation required for property-diminution arguments: a court cannot estimate a loss attributed to a restriction on development where the property’s baseline value has not been adequately presented and substantiated.