After 24 years of work, his employer refuses to pay this Moroccan €72,710

The Moroccan man was hired on 1 March 2000 as an appliance repair technician on a permanent contract. For more than 24 years, he worked in the same business until a workplace accident on 8 December 2022 upended his career.

In the meantime, the company had changed owners. On 22 September 2023, his contract was automatically transferred to the company that had bought the business. The employee retained his position, remuneration and, above all, all his seniority.

On 28 November 2024, following a return-to-work medical examination, the occupational physician declared him unfit for work. His state of health was considered incompatible with any reassignment within the company.

Summoned to a preliminary meeting, the Moroccan man was dismissed on 28 December on the grounds of occupational incapacity and the impossibility of reassignment. In the dismissal letter, his employer informed him that he would receive the special dismissal indemnity as well as an amount equivalent to pay in lieu of notice.

These amounts subsequently appeared on his December 2024 payslip. But the money was not paid to him. The employee therefore urgently brought the matter before the Versailles employment tribunal on 27 March 2025.

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In October, the employment tribunal ordered the company to pay him most of the amounts claimed. The employer appealed, arguing in particular that the existence of a serious dispute prevented the judge ruling in summary proceedings.

The company mainly argued that it should not have to bear alone the compensation corresponding to the Moroccan man’s 24 years of service. It had taken over the business only in September 2023 and wanted to limit its liability to the period after the acquisition. According to its calculations, it owed only €2,966.21.

The new employer also inherits the employee’s seniority

The Versailles court of appeal rejected this argument. When a company is taken over under the conditions laid down by the Labour Code, ongoing contracts are transferred to the new employer together with all the rights attached to them.

The company employing the Moroccan man when he was dismissed therefore had to bear all the financial consequences of the termination. It could not calculate the compensation solely from September 2023, as if the employee had just been hired.

Any agreements concluded between the former and new owner could not be invoked against the Moroccan man either. He was not a party to the sale contract and retained his rights linked to seniority dating back to March 2000.

In its ruling issued on 12 August 2026, the court also noted that the disputed compensation appeared on the payslip issued by the company itself. Their principle and amount could therefore no longer be seriously challenged, even though they remained unpaid.

The court thus provisionally confirmed €59,749.71 net in special dismissal compensation, €6,598.40 gross corresponding to the payment equivalent to notice, and €6,361.76 gross for paid leave. The total came to €72,709.87.

The court deducted only an additional €659.84 that the lower court had awarded for paid leave calculated on the notice period. In cases of occupational incapacity, the amount equivalent to notice pay is not actual wages and therefore does not generate paid leave.

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The employer must also pay the Moroccan man €1,000 for abusive resistance. To this amount are added €2,000 in legal costs awarded at first instance and an additional €2,000 for the appeal proceedings.

The company must finally provide him with several missing documents, including his payslips from January to October 2024, his work certificate and a compliant final settlement receipt. However, the court removed the €100-per-day penalty that had initially accompanied this obligation.