Moroccan Court Overturns Ruling: WhatsApp Medical Certificate Sparks Employee Dismissal Controversy

The employee was absent for health reasons and subsequently informed her employer "of her illness by sending a medical certificate via the social network WhatsApp to the human resources department," details the court in the statement of reasons. Upon her return to work, the employee submitted the medical certificate to the company, which "endorsed" it, before "being denied access to her workplace [...] without reason or legal justification, on the pretext that a dispute opposed her to the management of the company."

The attempt at an amicable settlement in the presence of the labor inspector having failed, the employee decided to sue the company to claim compensation for dismissal, damages, loss of employment, annual leave and daily allowances. The court of first instance thus ordered the employer to pay the employee compensation for notice, dismissal, damages, annual leave and salary, for a total amount of more than 222,000 dirhams, with the obligation to issue the certificate of employment under penalty of a fine of 100 dirhams per day of delay.

The employer appealed this judgment. During the trial before the Court of Appeal, the company claimed that it had never dismissed the employee who "had been absent from work for more than 25 days" without legal justification, and "without having informed her employer of her absence or the reason within 48 hours," in accordance with the law. The employer also disputed the authenticity of the document sent by the employee via WhatsApp, recalling that the official means of communication with its employees is the professional email.

The court of first instance had considered that Article 271 of the Labor Code, which stipulates that "any employee prevented from returning to his post due to illness or accident must justify it and inform his employer within the following forty-eight hours, except in cases of force majeure," did not specify "the specific means or channels by which medical certificates must be transmitted to the employer to inform him of the duration of the sick leave."

In its ruling, the Casablanca Court of Appeal ruled that "the organizational framework imposes the use of legal means" and that "the sending of a message via WhatsApp" to the head of human resources, "instead of the professional email, the means of communication adopted by the employer... renders this approach (the WhatsApp message) without legal effect." Moreover, the court ruled that the employee "terminated the employment relationship on her own initiative, and therefore does not deserve compensation for notice, dismissal or damages."