Cass. Soc., September 4th, 2024, n°22-24.005
When an employee is declared unfit for work, the employer must offer him another job appropriate to his abilities, as comparable as possible to his previous position and taking account of the occupational physician’s instructions (C. trav, art. L.1226-10).
Once these conditions have been met, the employer’s obligation to reclassify the employee is ”deemed satisfied”(C. trav, art. L.1226-12).
However, this presumption only applies if the employer has fulfilled his redeployment obligation faithfully (Cass. Soc., 22 January 2022, no. 20-20.369).
In a ruling handed down on 4 September 2024, the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) ruled for the first time on the issue of the burden of proving the unfair nature of reclassification proposals.
In this case, an employee working in Normandy was declared unfit for work by the occupational physician. His employer offered him 9 redeployment positions, all far from his home. When he refused them all, he was dismissed for unfitness and inability to reclassify.
The employee contested his dismissal before the Courts, arguing that his employer had not fulfilled his redeployment obligation in good faith by failing to offer him the positions available in Normandy.
The Court of Appeal upheld his claim. It held that in the absence of proof that there was no available position in Normandy compatible with the employee’s qualifications and physical abilities, the employer had failed to demonstrate that it had fulfilled its redeployment obligation under fair and reasonable conditions.
This analysis was censured by the French Supreme Court, which considered that by reasoning in this way, the Court of Appeal had reversed the burden of proof.
Referring to article 1354 of the Civil Code, the Court pointed out that the presumption that the law attaches to certain acts or facts relieves the person in whose favour it exists of the burden of proving it.
It deduced from this that when the employer has offered a job that complies with the legal provisions, the obligation to redeploy is deemed to have been met and it is up to the employee to show that this offer was not made fairly.
In other words, it is up to the employee to prove, in the event of a dispute, that the employer was disloyal, and in particular to show that a more suitable position existed, that the employer failed to take into consideration in its search.