After 11 Years, Moroccan-Born Employee Wins Harassment Case on Appeal
After losing on appeal and being ordered to repay the sums awarded by the labour court, an employee born in Morocco pursued her fight all the way to the Court of Cassation. On September 14, the Nîmes Court of Appeal recognized the moral harassment she had suffered and ordered her employer to pay damages.
Her first legal action dates back to June 2015. Hired in 2007, the service worker was responsible in particular for cleaning premises belonging to the Hérault CPAM. A new company took over her contract in February 2014. A few months later, she received a formal warning, which she contested while also speaking out about her working conditions.
In December 2017, the Montpellier labour court ruled in her favor: it overturned the sanction and ordered the company to pay her 20,000 euros for moral harassment, as well as 2,000 euros for an unjustified sanction. But the employer appealed and secured a complete reversal of the judgment.
On October 27, 2021, the Montpellier Court of Appeal rejected all of the employee’s claims. It also ordered her to repay the money she had received under the provisional enforcement of the ruling. The employee then appealed to the Court of Cassation.
That appeal allowed her to have the case reopened. On October 1, 2025, the Court of Cassation overturned the ruling in full: the judges had dismissed several items of evidence she had presented, including medical documents and the failure to follow the occupational physician’s recommendations. They had also wrongly treated the formal warning as a simple reprimand.
Humiliation and unjustified sanction upheld
Tasked with rehearing the case, the Nîmes Court of Appeal reviewed colleagues’ testimony, warning letters and medical records. Several witnesses described insults, humiliation and pressure from her team leader. Some said he had forbidden them from speaking to or helping her.
The company disputed the accusations and cited four internal investigations that had found no harassment. It said it had responded to the complaints and reorganized the work. The judges agreed with the company on one point: the employee’s complaint of excessive workload was not upheld.
That was not enough, however, to dismiss the rest of the case. In its September 14, 2026 ruling, the court found that her supervisor had behaved in a humiliating and insulting manner. The employer also failed to justify the September 2014 sanction or show that it had followed the occupational physician’s instructions.
Moral harassment was therefore recognized, with compensation reduced from 20,000 to 5,000 euros. The 2,000 euros awarded for the unjustified disciplinary sanction were upheld, as was the annulment of the formal warning.
The company must also pay an additional 2,000 euros in appeal costs, on top of the 1,000 euros awarded at first instance. It must cover the appeal costs.
