OD Flash | The link between moral harassment and an employee’s unfitness to work is not sufficient to characterize the occupational origin of the unfitness.

Cass. soc., October 16, 2024, no. 22-23.044

Unfitness to work has an occupational origin if it is, at least partially, due to a work accident or to an occupational illness (Cass., soc., January 26, 2011, n°09-41.358; Cass., soc., January 11, 2017, n°15-20.492 and Cass., soc., February 28, 2024, n° 22-19.878). Where this is the case, an employee declared unfit to work is entitled to a special severance payment and compensation in lieu of notice, in addition to the related paid leave, as provided for under article L. 1226-14 of the French Labor Code.

In the case at stake, an employee was dismissed on October 5, 2018, for non-occupational unfitness and impossibility to be redeployed. Believing that he had been the victim of moral harassment and that the employer had failed to meet its safety obligation, he brought an action before the Labor tribunal to contest his dismissal for unfitness to work, which he considered to be null and void.

In a ruling dated September 29, 2022, the Nancy Court of Appeal admitted that the employee had provided sufficient evidence to presume the existence of moral harassment, and that the company had failed to reverse this presumption. Consequently, the Court of Appeal ruled that the employee’s dismissal for unfitness to work was null and void, since it was linked to moral harassment and therefore, in its view, of occupational origin. Drawing the consequences of its analysis, the Court of Appeal ordered the Company to pay the employee the special severance payment and compensation in lieu of notice, and related paid vacations, provided for by article L. 1226-14 of the French Labor Code in the event of unfitness to work.

The employer lodged an appeal before the French Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the Nancy Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court recalls that the protective rules relating to victims of occupational accidents and illnesses are applicable whenever the employee’s unfitness, regardless of when it is established or invoked, is at least partially due to this accident or illness, and that the employer was aware of this occupational origin at the time of the dismissal.

It goes on to consider that the occupational doctor’s opinion of unfitness and the psychiatric expert’s report submitted to the debates by the employee do not sufficiently establish the link between the harassment suffered and the employee’s unfitness, and that the temporary compensation for unfitness form drawn up by the occupational doctor and sent by the latter to the employer by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, received by the employer on September 12, 2018, do not establish the employer’s knowledge of the alleged link between the unfitness and the occupational origin prior to the dismissal pronounced on October 5, 2028.

The High Court therefore overturned the Court of Appeal ruling, and in particular the provisions of the ruling ordering the employer to pay the employee amounts in respect of the special severance payment and the compensation in lieu of notice and related paid leave.