Background
ADIE hired M. [D] [L] as a back-office coordinator on October 8, 2009. He was absent on non-occupational sick leave from August 1 through September 3, 2018, and the parties entered into a mutually agreed termination that took effect on September 3, 2018.
On March 27, 2024, the employee brought proceedings before the Paris Employment Tribunal seeking payment in lieu of paid annual leave allegedly accrued during his sickness absence. The tribunal held that his claims were time-barred. He appealed to the Court of Cassation, arguing that he had acquired no enforceable entitlement for non-occupational sick leave until Law No. 2024-364 of April 22, 2024, recognized that entitlement retroactively, and that his limitation period therefore could not have expired in 2021.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal. It reaffirmed that workers on duly certified sick leave may acquire paid annual leave under EU law and that French courts must disapply incompatible domestic rules when necessary to give effect to Article 31(2) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Court had already applied that principle in its September 13, 2023 decision by partially setting aside the effective-work requirement in Article L. 3141-3 of the Labour Code.
Nevertheless, a claim for payment in lieu of untaken paid leave is a wage claim governed by the three-year limitation period in Article L. 3245-1 of the Labour Code. When employment ends before the employee can take the leave, that period begins on the termination date because the leave entitlement is then converted into a compensatory payment. The special two-year period introduced by the 2024 legislation concerns actions seeking an award of leave days during an ongoing employment relationship; it did not postpone or revive this former employee’s payment claim.
Because the employment relationship ended on September 3, 2018, but the employee did not commence proceedings until March 27, 2024, the claim was brought more than three years after the limitation period began. The tribunal therefore correctly declared it inadmissible as prescribed.
Key Takeaways
- Payment in lieu of untaken paid annual leave is treated as a wage claim and is subject to the three-year limitation period under Article L. 3245-1 of the Labour Code.
- When employment terminates, the limitation period for that payment claim begins on the termination date.
- The 2024 legislation recognizing paid-leave accrual during non-occupational sick leave did not revive a former employee’s payment claim that was already time-barred.
Why It Matters
The judgment separates the existence of an EU-law-based paid-leave entitlement from the procedural deadline for enforcing the resulting monetary claim. Employees may accrue paid leave during non-occupational sickness absence, but former employees must still seek payment within three years after their employment ends.
For employers and practitioners, the decision also clarifies that the 2024 law’s two-year transitional period for claims seeking leave days does not displace the established three-year wage limitation governing compensatory payments following termination.