Background
Avenir Telecom hired Mr. [Y] in 2011 as an export-area accessories sales manager. He was later expatriated to [Locality 2] under a payroll-portage arrangement. After that arrangement ended on December 31, 2015, he returned to Avenir Telecom’s workforce.
Avenir Telecom entered judicial reorganization in January 2016. Following approval of a job-protection plan and authorization to eliminate 255 positions, the company dismissed the employee for economic reasons on May 11, 2016. He brought employment claims concerning both the performance and termination of his employment contract. The Paris Court of Appeal awarded him certain expatriation-related benefits but rejected his claim that the dismissal lacked real and serious cause.
The company and the plan administrator appealed principally, arguing in part that the employment proceeding had lapsed for inactivity and challenging the benefits awarded. The employee cross-appealed the rejection of his wrongful-dismissal claim.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation rejected the principal appeal. In an oral labor-court proceeding, once the parties have completed the required filing formalities, they need not exchange written submissions before the hearing unless the conciliation and orientation panel or the adjudication panel specifically directs them to do so. Here, no particular procedural step had been imposed before the May 28, 2019 removal order. The employee then supplied his submissions and evidence and requested reinstatement within two years of that order, so the proceeding had not lapsed.
The Court also upheld the award of a €31,250 housing allowance for 2015. The Court of Appeal permissibly found from the employer’s October 21, 2013 email that the proposed amounts, apart from moving expenses, were annual and that the employer had undertaken to pay the housing allowance throughout the expatriation.
On the employee’s cross-appeal, however, the Court partially quashed the judgment. Even where a job-protection plan exists, the employer must search for available reassignment positions, whether or not listed in the plan, and make precise, concrete, individualized offers of every available job corresponding to the employee’s qualifications. The employer bears the burden of proving compliance. By relying on the employee’s failure to assert that suitable positions existed after he challenged the Bulgarian positions offered to him, the Court of Appeal improperly reversed that burden. The case was remanded to a differently constituted panel of the Paris Court of Appeal to reconsider whether the dismissal lacked real and serious cause and any resulting compensation.
Key Takeaways
- In oral labor-court proceedings, parties generally need not exchange written submissions before the hearing unless the court has specifically imposed that requirement.
- An economic-dismissal employer must prove that it conducted the required search for suitable reassignment opportunities and made precise, concrete, individualized offers.
- A job-protection plan does not limit the employer’s reassignment duty to positions identified in that plan.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies both procedural-lapse rules in French labor litigation and the allocation of proof in economic-dismissal disputes. An employee cannot be required to identify suitable vacancies that the employer should have investigated and documented.
For employers conducting collective restructurings, compliance with an approved job-protection plan does not by itself establish satisfaction of the individual reassignment obligation. Employers should retain evidence of the full search and of offers tailored to each affected employee’s qualifications.