Vers une réparation intégrale de l'accident du travail ?

The law of April 9th 1898 established the liability without fault of the employer towards his employees recognized by the Final court of appeal in 1896. It provides fixed-price compensation for a damage which happened because of the work or during work, the employee waiving any claim prosecution in civil liability against his employer. This facilitated compensation departs from the ordinary law system and other special systems, based on the principle of full compensation, because it does not repair personal damage. However, social legislation has provided additional compensation in case of gross negligence of the employer, which jurisprudential definition has changed considerably from the Villa decision to the “asbestos” decisions. Continuing with the dual purpose of ensuring the safety of workers and improving the compensation for victims of occupational injuries, getting close to ordinary law system, the Final court of appeal has considerably made the qualification conditions of gross negligence of the employer more flexible. At the same time, particularly after the priority issue of constitutionality QPC 2010-8 which has introduced greater flexibility for the article L. 452-3 of the social security code, opening the possibility of full compensation, it clarified the field of compensation for victims of gross negligence. Four judgments made on April 4th 2012 by the Second civil chamber show that this dual jurisprudential evolution on the qualification of gross negligence of the employer and the compensation of its consequences asks the question for the persistence of fixed-price compensation.