Background
Polyclinique des longues allées employed Ms. [G] as a hospital-services employee beginning in March 2011. After taking medical leave in September 2019, she was declared medically unfit for her position in July 2020 but fit for another role that was “preferably sedentary and administrative.”
The day after an August 31, 2020 pre-dismissal interview, the employee informed the employer that she had recognized disabled-worker status. The employer dismissed her on September 3 for medical unfitness and inability to reassign her. She challenged the dismissal as void because of disability discrimination. The Orléans Court of Appeal agreed, relying in part on the employer’s failure to contact the disabled-worker job-retention support service known as Sameth, its lack of additional reassignment efforts after learning of her status, and contemporaneous staffing activity in reception and admissions positions.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation quashed the appellate judgment in full. It held that, in a disability-discrimination action, the court must first determine whether the employee has presented facts supporting an inference of discrimination. Such facts may include an employer’s express or implicit refusal to implement concrete and appropriate reasonable accommodations requested by the employee or recommended by occupational-health personnel or the social and economic committee, or its refusal to honor the employee’s request to consult an organization assisting disabled workers.
Here, the appellate court had found that the employee neither requested consultation with Sameth nor asked the employer to implement any concrete and appropriate reasonable accommodation. Those findings meant that she had not presented facts supporting an inference of disability discrimination. The Court therefore held that the appellate court violated Articles L. 1134-1 and L. 5213-6 of the Labour Code by shifting the burden to the employer and treating shortcomings in its reassignment efforts as disability discrimination. It remanded the case to the Bourges Court of Appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A disability-discrimination claim requires facts supporting an initial inference of discrimination before the employer must provide an objective, nondiscriminatory justification.
- An employer’s refusal to make specifically requested or recommended reasonable accommodations can support that inference, as can refusing an employee’s request to consult a disabled-worker employment-assistance organization.
- Where the employee requested neither Sameth involvement nor any concrete reasonable accommodation, the identified shortcomings in the reassignment process did not establish the required prima facie inference of disability discrimination.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes an allegedly inadequate reassignment search from disability discrimination. An employer’s failure to pursue additional reassignment steps after learning of disabled-worker status does not, without the required facts suggesting a refusal of concrete accommodations or requested assistance, automatically trigger the discrimination burden-shifting framework.
The ruling does not finally determine every issue concerning the dismissal or declare that the employer satisfied its reassignment obligations. By quashing the judgment and remanding, the Court left the Bourges Court of Appeal to reconsider the dispute consistently with the stated evidentiary standard.