The activities of workers in the context of remote work can be multiple and include many nuances. So there is a fine line between what constitutes an accident at work and what is related to personal activities.
In our chronique of February 3, 2022, the question left behind is the death of everyone in the escalation of his residence, and he is blessed by his rendant at the rez-de-chaussée for the pause of the constituait repatriation for the travailleuse of concern. work accident. On this occasion, the Administrative Labor Court answered this question in the affirmative.
The question arose again, but under somewhat different circumstances in a decision recently issued by TAT. In this case, it was a remote worker who had an office in the basement of her home, which was connected to her employer’s network.
She hurts her ankle
This worker had gone to her kitchen to make dinner, and then had gone to eat outside at the picnic table in her yard. At the end of her meal, she returns to her quarters again to do various household chores, and then goes out to enjoy the remaining moments of her meal break, from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm. The accident happened: the worker dropped her cell phone on the stairs and, trying to retrieve it, fell and injured her ankle.
This time, is it a work accident?
TAT will answer the question in the negative.
For the court, since the meal break is unpaid and the employer does not require the worker to be available, there is no dependency relationship during the incident in question. Moreover, the cell phone was a personal device and did not belong to the employer.
In fact, according to the court, the activities carried out during the accident were not part of the activities related to and beneficial to the work. The worker was injured, while in the sphere of her personal rather than professional life.
conditions
For each such case, the arbitral tribunal has deemed it “necessary to estimate all the particular circumstances of each case”.
To help answer our question, several criteria have been established by the courts, none of which are conclusive. These parameters are:
- What is the scene of the accident?
- When did this event happen?
- Was the activity carried out by the worker at the time of the accident for a wage?
- Was there a degree of authority or dependency on the part of the employer when the accident occurred?
- What is the employer’s degree of authority when the event occurs, even outside normal business hours?
- What was the purpose of the exercise the worker was doing at the time of the accident: Is this activity optional, important, or necessary for normal work performance?
- What is the relationship or benefit of the worker’s activity at the time of the event in relation to work performance?
Although the question seems trivial at times, it is important to determine whether or not the circumstances of an accident that occurred while working remotely could have caused a work accident. It should be noted in this regard that the compensation granted under the law relating to industrial accidents and occupational diseases is often greater than that obtained by individual or group insurance, and this, to the extent of the existence of such a guarantee, of course.
MH Bernard Clich is an honorary lawyer at the Morency Société d’avocats
