Court of Cassation Upholds Rights to Paid Leave for Employee Absences

SOCIAL JURISPRUDENCE

Court of Cassation, Social Chamber – Appeals No. 22-17.340 to 22-17.342; 22-17.638; 22-10.529, 22-11.106

° COMPLIANCE WITH EUROPEAN UNION LAW

Article 31 § 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union guarantees every worker an annual period of paid leave, the social chamber now decides to set aside, in the disputes submitted to it, the non-compliant provisions of the Labor Code which prevent any acquisition of paid leave during a work stoppage for ordinary illness as well as than those limiting the acquisition of leave in the event of work stoppage due to a work accident or occupational illness exceeding a period of one year.

° CONTEXT OF THE REFERENCES:

Paid leave and non-occupational illnesses

Employees contracted a non-occupational illness which prevented them from working. Subsequently, they calculated their right to paid leave by including the period during which they were unable to work.

• According to European Union law, when the employee cannot work due to his state of health, a situation beyond his control, his absence must not have an impact on the calculation of his paid leave rights.
• According to French law, an employee suffering from a non-occupational illness does not acquire days of paid leave during the time of his work stoppage.

Paid leave and work accidents:

An employee was the victim of a work accident. Subsequently, he calculated his paid leave rights by including the entire period during which he was off work. In application of French law, the Court of Appeal considered that this calculation could not take into account more than one year of work stoppage. The employee filed a cassation appeal.

According to European Union law, an employee who is the victim of a work accident can benefit from a right to paid leave covering the entirety of their work stoppage.

• According to French law, compensation for paid leave is limited to a single year of suspension of the employment contract in the event of a work accident or occupational illness.

Prescription of the right to paid vacation compensation

A teacher worked for a training institute for more than 10 years. Having obtained from the courts that this contractual relationship be qualified as an employment contract, she asked to be compensated for the paid leave that she was never able to take during these 10 years.

The court of appeal considered that the teacher should be compensated, but only on the basis of the three years preceding the recognition by the courts of her employment contract, the rest of her rights to paid leave being prescribed. The teacher and the training institute each filed a cassation appeal

° SOLUTIONS FROM THE COURT OF CASSATION

How to bring French law into compliance with European Union law?

Right to paid leave for sickness absence (professional or not) or work accident whatever their nature.

The Court of Cassation, having regard to Article 31§2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, on the right to rest, rejects the provisions of French law which are not in conformity with European Union law . Thus, it judges that employees suffering from an illness or victim of an accident, of any nature whatsoever (professional or non-professional) have the right to claim paid leave rights by including in their calculation the period during from which they could not work. The Court of Cassation therefore approves the court of appeal.

Calculation of paid leave rights not limited to the first year of work stoppage.

The Court of Cassation, having regard to Article 31§2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on the right to rest, rejects the provisions of French law which are not in conformity with European Union law. Thus, it judges that in the event of a work accident or occupational illness, compensation for paid leave cannot be limited to one year. The Court of Cassation therefore censures the decision of the Court of Appeal.

What is the starting point for the limitation period for a request for paid leave compensation?

The limitation period for the right to paid leave only begins to run when the employer has put his employee in a position to exercise this right in good time.

Whether fixed by law or by agreement, there is a specific period during which the employee must take paid leave. It is only when this period ends that the limitation period for paid leave compensation begins to run. However, in application of Union law, the Court of Cassation rules that the limitation period for paid leave compensation can only begin to run if the employer has taken the necessary measures to allow the employee to exercise effectively his right to paid leave.

In this case, the teacher was not able to take paid leave during her 10 years of activity within the training institute, since the employer had not recognized the existence of an employment contract. Therefore, the limitation period could not begin to run.

The Court of Cassation therefore censures the decision of the Court of Appeal.

° LIGHTING

These decisions of the Court of Cassation inevitably constitute a real earthquake for employers whose employees could legitimately claim retroactively payment of paid leave for periods during which they were on sick leave. We invite our company and sector negotiators to address this subject quickly in order to put in place effective and legitimate measures for employee rights.

Sophie RIOLLET, lawyer, Legal service center of the National Legal Sector of the UNSA.

For any comments or questions, legal@unsa.org