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"Better to have a good management than a bad conviction
About the decision of the social chamber of the Court of Cassation of 10 July 2019
Maître Cécile ZAKINE
Lawyer - Doctor of Law
Lecturer at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis
The judgment dated 10 July 2019 handed down by the social chamber of the Court of Cassation (Cass. soc., 10 July 2019, no. 17-22.318) highlighted the risk to which the employer is likely to be subject in the event of poor employee management
The reasoning of the Court of Cassation is very explicit:
"But whereas the Court of Appeal held, firstly, that following the refusal to sign an amendment modifying the structure of his remuneration, the employer had threatened the employee with financial sanctions, secondly, that the employer had not applied the contractual commission rate to the employee, Finally, that when the payment was due in January 2012, the employer had not paid the employee a bonus, which had the characteristics of constancy, fixity and generality of a custom and constituted an element of remuneration; that it was able to deduce that these breaches were sufficiently serious to prevent the continuation of the employment contract; that the plea is unfounded.
- threatening the employee with financial penalties following his refusal to sign an amendment modifying his pay structure,
- failure to apply to the employee the commission rate provided for in his or her employment contract,
- failure to pay the employee a bonus which was nevertheless the result of company practice.
The Conseil de Prud'hommes upheld the employee's claim and the judgment was confirmed by a decision of the Nîmes Court of Appeal on 30 May 2017 (Nîmes Court of Appeal, 30 May 2017, 16/02269).
It was not surprising that the Court of Cassation rejected the company's appeal and confirmed the position of the trial judges.
The employer's failings were deemed sufficiently obvious to order the judicial termination of the employee's employment contract.
This case highlights the obligation of the employer and the employee to perform the employment contract in good faith and in good faith.
Like any synallagmatic contract, the employment contract imposes on each party the performance of the obligations arising from it.
Good employee management throughout the contractual relationship is the right response, upstream, to prevent disputes.
It is therefore the key to better productivity and profitability.
