Background
M. [R] was seriously injured in a road accident on October 20, 2006, leaving him severely and permanently disabled. At the time he was already cohabiting with Mme [N], whom he married on June 21, 2009, with no prenuptial agreement — placing the couple under France’s default matrimonial regime, the community of acquests (communauté réduite aux acquêts). From April 2007 until the couple’s separation in 2015, Mme [N] served as M. [R]’s full-time caregiver. M. [R] had received approximately €759,985 from his insurer, a sum that expressly included compensation for third-party personal assistance (assistance tierce personne).
Following separation, Mme [N] sued M. [R] and his legal guardian — the Departmental Union of Family Associations of Meurthe-et-Moselle (UDAF 54), which had been appointed as his tutor — in May 2018. She claimed a debt under the doctrine of unjust enrichment (enrichissement sans cause) for the caregiving she had provided between April 3, 2007 and October 19, 2015. The Nancy Court of Appeal (First Civil Chamber), on September 25, 2023, upheld that claim and ordered the UDAF, in its representative capacity, to pay Mme [N] €412,680. The appellate court reasoned that her caregiving role had plainly exceeded her marital obligations, that M. [R] had thereby avoided a certain and unavoidable expense, and that she had been unable to hold paid employment or pursue any independent social investment during those years.
M. [R]’s guardian brought a pourvoi en cassation raising a single ground of appeal. The Court of Cassation additionally raised a ground of its own motion (moyen relevé d’office) after notifying the parties pursuant to Article 1015 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
The Court’s Holding
The First Civil Chamber quashed the Nancy judgment in part, on the ex-officio ground, by applying Articles 1401, 1409, and 1371 (in its pre-February 10, 2016 redaction) of the Civil Code. The Court reasoned as follows: Article 1401 makes spouses’ wages and earnings from personal industry assets of the community; Article 1409 makes the cost of maintaining the household — including support owed between spouses — a definitive community liability. It necessarily follows, the Court held, that financing effective third-party assistance for the essential daily needs of a disabled spouse is a permanent community expense, not a personal one. Because that cost would have fallen on the community in any event, the caregiving spouse does not suffer any personal impoverishment (appauvrissement personnel) — a prerequisite of an unjust enrichment claim — by providing that care without remuneration.
By awarding Mme [N] compensation without accounting for the community-property regime in force during the married phase of the relevant period (June 2009 through the 2015 separation), the Court of Appeal violated Articles 1401 and 1409 of the Civil Code. The Court of Cassation accordingly set aside the Nancy judgment in its entirety except for the portion declaring Mme [N]’s claim admissible, and referred the case to the Court of Appeal of Metz.
The two grounds of cassation originally raised by the applicant (first and second branches of the single ground) were dismissed without specific reasoning under Article 1014(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure as plainly incapable of leading to cassation. Mme [N] was ordered to bear costs; all Article 700 fee applications were rejected.
Key Takeaways
- Under the French community-of-acquests regime, the cost of third-party care for a disabled spouse is a definitive community liability (Articles 1401 and 1409 Civil Code); it is not the personal burden of whichever spouse happens to provide that care.
- A married spouse who gives unpaid daily assistance to a disabled partner therefore lacks the personal impoverishment necessary to sustain an unjust-enrichment claim against that partner for the duration of the marriage.
- The decision preserves the admissibility of Mme [N]’s claim, signalling that unjust enrichment may still be available for the pre-marital cohabitation phase (April 2007 – June 2009), when no community existed and personal impoverishment was theoretically possible — a question left to the Metz Court of Appeal on remand.
- The Court exercised its power to raise a cassation ground ex officio, underscoring that courts must examine the matrimonial regime’s effect on unjust-enrichment claims even when the parties have not framed the issue that way.
Why It Matters
This ruling sharpens the intersection between French matrimonial property law and the doctrine of unjust enrichment. Attorneys advising spouses who provide substantial informal caregiving — or advising disabled persons’ estates — must now carefully identify the matrimonial regime in place and the precise period at issue. For spouses married under community property, informal caregiving is legally absorbed into the community’s obligations; the caregiving spouse acquires no personal claim against the other for that period, regardless of the physical and economic burden actually borne.
The decision also has practical implications for personal-injury damages: insurers and courts routinely award assistance tierce personne compensation to disabled plaintiffs. Where that plaintiff is married under community property, and where the care is in fact provided by the spouse, this ruling suggests the insurance proceeds simply replenish the community rather than creating a windfall that the caregiving spouse can later reclaim via unjust enrichment. Practitioners should therefore advise clients at the time of a settlement or judgment — not only at divorce — about how the matrimonial regime will govern the allocation of any third-party-assistance award received during the marriage.