Dismissal letter: the judge must not distort the grounds for dismissal

Court of Cassation, Social Chamber, 21 January 2026, n° 24-12.127

In this case, an employee holding the position of R&D Department Director within a company was dismissed for gross misconduct by his employer on February 18, 2020. The dismissal letter referred to the existence of a romantic relationship between the employee and his assistant, and then reproached the employee in particular for his opposition to an internal reorganization of the administrative support within his department (following the disclosure of the romantic relationship between the employee and his assistant), repeated acts of insubordination, as well as threats and an attempted blackmail against the company’s president.

The former employee brought a claim before the labor court seeking to have his dismissal declared null and void.

In a decision dated January 11, 2024, the Court of Appeal held the dismissal to be null, finding that it was in reality based on a matter relating to the employee’s private life (his relationship with another employee), without the employer demonstrating a clear disturbance within the company. The employer therefore filed an appeal with the Cour de cassation. The Cour de cassation partially overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision insofar as it had held the employee’s dismissal to be null. It ruled that the Court of Appeal had distorted the dismissal letter by characterizing one of the grounds as relating to the employee’s private life. According to the Court, the romantic relationship was merely a contextual element mentioned at the beginning of the dismissal letter: the actual grounds concerned the employee’s insubordination and blackmail following the reorganization of the department imposed by the employer. Consequently, the mere reference to an element of the employee’s private life in the dismissal letter is not sufficient to justify the nullity of the dismissal.