Equal treatment: an identical situation is still required (successive death/disability benefit schemes)
Cass. soc., 25 March 2026, n° 24-17.236
The principle of equal treatment in French employment law requires a comparison between employees placed in an identical situation. The question remains whether that identity actually exists. An interesting illustration involving successive death/disability benefit schemes:
The claimant employee, classified as category 2 invalidity, challenged the fact that she had not received an invalidity annuity that two other employees, with whom she compared herself, had received.
Three death/disability benefit schemes had succeeded one another within the company:
the Solimut scheme, applicable until 31 December 2016, covered category 1, 2 and 3 invalidity;
the Gan Vie scheme, applicable from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2018, limited coverage to category 3 invalidity only;
the Allianz scheme, applicable from 1 January 2019, reinstated coverage for categories 1, 2 and 3.
The triggering event for the "invalidity" risk (the first sick leave) fell in different periods for each employee:
for the claimant, during the period the Gan Vie scheme applied;
for the first comparator employee, under the Solimut scheme;
for the second employee used for comparison, under the Allianz scheme.
Now, coverage for the invalidity risk is determined by the death/disability benefit scheme in force on the date of the triggering event. In this context, the claimant, classified as category 2 invalidity while the Gan Vie scheme applied, had not received an annuity under the invalidity coverage, unlike her two colleagues.
The court of appeal saw this as a breach of the principle of equal treatment, holding in particular that:
the three employees were in a "similar situation";
the date of the first work stoppage is not an objective, relevant and materially verifiable factor capable of justifying a difference in treatment.
The French Supreme Court sets aside this reasoning: the employees were not covered by the same death/disability benefit scheme at the time of the triggering event for the invalidity and were therefore not in an identical situation, so that no unequal treatment could be found.
Source: French Supreme Court, 25 March 2026, n° 24-17.236