OD FLASH | Notification deadline for disciplinary dismissal: The impact of postponing the preliminary meeting

Supreme Court – Social Chamber – January 22, 2025 / No. 23-19.892

By a judgment dated January 22, 2025, the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court provided an essential reminder regarding the starting point of the one-month deadline for notifying a disciplinary dismissal, in cases where the postponement of the preliminary meeting is solely at the employer’s initiative.

In this case, an employee had been summoned on August 2, 2019, to attend a preliminary meeting initially scheduled for August 29, 2019. This meeting was postponed at the employer’s initiative to September 6, 2019. The employee was subsequently dismissed for serious misconduct by letter dated October 7, 2019.

Challenging this dismissal, the employee brought the matter before the Labor Court, arguing that the notification was out of time, having been issued more than one month after the date initially scheduled for the preliminary meeting.

The question before the Supreme Court was as follows: Does the one-month deadline for notifying a disciplinary dismissal begin to run from the initially scheduled date of the preliminary meeting when the postponement is at the employer’s initiative?

The Supreme Court answered in the affirmative and quashed the appeal judgment. Based on Articles L.1232-6 and L.1332-2 of the French Labor Code, the Court confirmed that the one-month deadline for notifying disciplinary dismissal starts from the date initially scheduled for the preliminary meeting when the postponement is at the employer’s initiative. In this case, since the dismissal notification was issued on October 7, 2019, more than one month after August 29, 2019, it was deemed irregular.

This judgment highlights two essential points:

• The one-month deadline for notifying a disciplinary dismissal starts from the date initially set for the preliminary meeting when the postponement is at the employer’s initiative.
• A disciplinary dismissal notified beyond this deadline lacks real and serious grounds, regardless of the severity of the alleged misconduct.

Conversely, if the postponement is at the employee’s request, the one-month deadline begins to run from the new date of the meeting.

This judgment underscores the importance for employers to strictly adhere to legal deadlines in disciplinary procedures.