Maternity: the legal salary upgrade is only due once you return from maternity leave

Soc.Octobre 2, 2024, n°23-11.582

For the first time, the French Supreme Court has ruled that the salary increase which an employee is legally entitled, considering salary increases made by the company during her maternity leave is due only at the end of the leave (and not during the period of suspension of her employment contract) and only for periods subsequent to it. Furthermore, if the employee has been forced to work during her maternity leave or sick leave, she can claim damages for the loss suffered, rather than payment of the corresponding wages.

Moral Harassment: prescription period for an action to invalidate a dismissal based on harassment is five years

Soc.Septembre 4, 2024, n°22-22.860

Any action relating to the termination of an employment contract is subject to a 12-month statute of limitations from the date of notification. However, the French Labor Code expressly states that this time limit does not apply when the action is brought based on Article L. 1152-1, which prohibits moral harassment. The French Supreme Court deduces that such an action is subject to the five-year statute of limitations set out in article 2224 of the French Civil Code.

Dismissal: violation of the employee’s right to privacy makes the dismissal null and void

Soc.Septembre 25, 2024, n°23-11.860 et n°22-20.672

Violation of the employee’s right to privacy makes the dismissal null and void, as this is a fundamental freedom. On the other hand, if the dismissal is motivated by a fact from the employee’s personal life, which does not infringe privacy, the dismissal is without real and serious cause.

Thus, not all aspects of an employee’s personal life benefit from the same level of protection. A distinction must be made between private life, which relates to the protection of the home, correspondence and sentimental life, i.e. the intimacy of private life, and which constitutes a fundamental freedom, and personal life, which covers all employee behavior unrelated to the performance of the employment contract.

Demotion: not all demotions are disciplinary in nature

Soc.Septembre 25, 2024, n°23-20.450

The demotion of an employee who returned to her previous employment as an accountant, at her own request in writing, and based on her professional inadequacy regarding the specific tasks required by the position of head accountant to which she had been promoted, cannot be qualified as a disciplinary measure.