Background
Maillot Services Distribution employed Ms. [Z] as an all-purpose gas-station employee from September 5, 2019, through February 28, 2021. She went on medical leave on November 10, 2020, and that leave was renewed through the end of her contract. She later brought employment-tribunal claims concerning the performance of the employment contract.
The occupational physician had advised against assigning her to an outdoor position on the station forecourt. The employer nevertheless allowed her to perform forecourt duties. On May 16, 2024, the Saint-Denis de La Réunion Court of Appeal rejected her claim for damages for breach of the employer’s safety obligation, reasoning that she had neither alleged nor proved that compliance would have affected her health and had not established a causal connection between the breach and any injury.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation held that an employer must take the measures necessary to protect workers’ physical and mental health, consider each worker’s safety and health capacities when assigning tasks, and take account of the occupational physician’s opinions and proposed individual workplace adjustments. If the employer declines to follow those recommendations, it must give the worker and physician written reasons.
Departing from its earlier approach, the Court held that an employer’s failure to comply with an occupational physician’s recommendations for individual adjustment, adaptation, or transformation of a workstation inevitably infringes the affected employee’s safety and health. The finding of noncompliance alone therefore gives rise to a right to compensation, without requiring separate proof of injury or causation.
Because the appellate court found that the employer assigned Ms. [Z] to forecourt duties despite the physician’s contraindication, it erred by demanding additional proof of harm. The Court partially quashed the judgment as to the safety-obligation damages claim, costs, and procedural-fee award, and remanded those issues to a differently constituted panel of the same appellate court.
Key Takeaways
- Disregarding an occupational physician’s recommended individual workplace restrictions is itself a compensable breach of the employer’s safety obligation.
- The employee need not separately prove resulting injury or a causal link once the court finds that the employer failed to follow those recommendations.
- The ruling changes the Court of Cassation’s previously stated approach that the existence of injury remained for the lower courts to assess.
Why It Matters
The decision strengthens enforcement of occupational-health restrictions by removing a significant evidentiary hurdle for employees. French employers that do not implement an occupational physician’s individualized recommendations—or provide written reasons for refusing them—may face damages based on the violation itself.
The Court also distinguished failures that inherently impair worker health and safety from procedural occupational-health violations that may not inevitably cause harm, such as the missed medical examinations addressed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Artemis Security.