OD FLASH | Limitation of actions for payment of wages, unfitness for work and termination of employment contract

Cass. soc., 7 mai 2024, n°22-24.394

If an employee is declared unfit for work, the employer is obliged to redeploy the employee. However, an exemption from redeployment, the employee’s refusal of a suitable offer or proof that redeployment is impossible may justify the dismissal of the employee.

In any event, if the employer has not redeployed or dismissed the employee within one month of receiving the notice of unfitness, the employer must resume payment of the salary corresponding to the position held by the employee before the suspension of the employment contract.
In its judgment of 7 May, the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) set a limitation period of three years for the resumption of salary payments.

Article L. 3245-1 of the Labor Code provides that an action for payment or recovery of wages is time-barred three years after the date on which the plaintiff knew or should have known of the facts giving rise to the action. The claim may therefore relate to sums due in respect of the last three years from that date or, if the employment contract has been terminated, to sums due in respect of the three years prior to the termination of the contract. Thus, the date on which the salary is due corresponds to the usual date of payment of salaries in the company and concerns the entire salary for the month in question.

In the judgment of 7 May 2024, an employee was declared unfit for work on 3 July 2012 and then dismissed on 12 September 2013, more than a year after she was declared unfit. On 1 March 2016, she applied to the Labor Court for payment of the relevant wages from the end of the one-month period following her notice of unfitness.

The Labor Court, followed by the Court of Appeal of Fort-de-France, in a judgment dated 16 September 2022, declared the action time-barred, considering that the starting point for the limitation period was the expiry of the one-month period following the employee’s notice of unfitness. In the present case, therefore, the action for payment of wages should have been brought before 3 August 2015.

The question referred to the Court of Cassation was therefore to determine the starting point of the limitation period for an action for payment of wages due as a result of the employer’s inaction after the expiry of the one-month period following the employee’s notice of unfitness.

The Court of Cassation ruled that the limitation period for an action for payment of wages, the payment of which must be resumed by the employer after the expiry of the one-month period following the notice of unfitness, runs from the date on which each of the wage claims due fell due until the termination of the employment contract.

Thus, the starting point of the limitation period is not fixed at the date of the first non-payment of wages, but runs from each non-payment of wages.