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French Supreme Court, Social Division, May 6, 2025 – No. 23-19.041
The disciplinary power vested in employers as heads of companies allows them to impose sanctions on their employees.
According to the principle of non bis in idem, the same act cannot be punished twice. This principle implies that the sanction imposed on an employee exhausts the employer’s disciplinary power (Cass. soc., June 25, 1981, no. 79-41.273).
In this case, an employee, an ambulance driver since 2010, received a five-day disciplinary suspension for unjustified absence. She challenged this sanction before the Labor Court and requested its annulment, arguing that it constituted a double disciplinary sanction, particularly since she had received a formal warning a few weeks earlier for insubordination, in which the employer deprived her of her remuneration.
She invoked, in particular, a violation of the principle of non bis in idem, considering that she had been subject to several penalties for the same misconduct.
In a ruling dated May 4, 2023 (No. 21/04524), the Rouen Court of Appeal dismissed the employee’s claims.
The employee then appealed to the Court of Cassation.
The Court of Cassation dismissed the appeal. It pointed out that, under Article L. 1331-1 of the Labor Code, an employer can impose a new penalty if the misconduct continues, even if it’s similar to the misconduct that was already punished.
The Court of Cassation therefore concluded that the employer had not exhausted its disciplinary powers and that the employee’s continued misconduct justified her dismissal.
This decision is in line with the case law of the Court of Cassation, which had already had occasion to issue the same ruling in a decision of September 30, 2004, stating that “the continuation by an employee of a wrongful act entitles the employer to rely on similar acts, including those that have already been sanctioned, to characterize serious misconduct” (Cass. Soc., September 30, 2004, No. 02-44.030).