• On Tuesday, the Lyon court condemned the SNCF for "inexcusable fault".

  • The judges considered that the company had failed to protect one of its employees, victim of harassment and violence on the part of her hierarchical superior.

    Facts that she had denounced on several occasions.

  • The court also considers that the state of depression in which she fell results from her deleterious working conditions.

The SNCF has just been sentenced by the Lyon court for "inexcusable fault" and will have to pay 2,000 euros in this respect to one of its executives, an employee of the company for 30 years, according to information from

20 Minutes

.

Following a "degraded work situation", physical and verbal violence and moral harassment from her supervisor, the complainant, now 52 years old, fell into a "serious depression".

And his employer did nothing to save him, the court said.

The first facts date back to December 2006. “That year, there was the first physical altercation.

My client was violently grabbed, insulted.

His manager made him fall to the ground in front of several witnesses, ”reports his lawyer Emilie Conte-Jansen.

And to add: “Throughout the year 2007, she suffered physical intimidation, verbal abuse and threats from this man.

The employee then informs her management, she requests occupational medicine, which in turn alerts the employer.

In vain.

“It was completely delusional”

“SNCF took time to react.

A year later, my client will be assigned to another regional site of the group but she will remain in contact with her hierarchical superior who did not hesitate to mock her in collective emails, ”continues the lawyer.

What follows will only be a slow descent into hell.

He is assigned positions “without giving him tasks”.

“My client spent seven months without having any missions to carry out.

He was also forced to use his personal phone, ”continues Emilie Conte-Jansen.

In 2010, the company brought him back to the Lyon site “in the same building as his former supervisor”.

The first position she held was abolished six months later.

For the second, she does not have the required skills and has never been trained.

“It was completely delusional.

Everything was done to make her crack.

We have the impression that everything has been put in place to keep her away, to punish her for having denounced very serious facts", accuses the lawyer while the employer considers that she "has not unsatisfied with his work.

The various positions she subsequently occupied were also eliminated one after the other.

From 2014, the employee will be on sick leave for a period of 3 years.

Anxiety, inhibition, sleep disorders, asthenia, aggressive dysregulation… His “serious depression”, following his “deleterious working conditions”, will be recognized by the competent authorities in the matter as an occupational disease in March 2017. Two years before the plaintiff does not take legal action.

"The SNCF has not taken any useful measure to protect its employee"

In its judgment dated January 3, which

20 Minutes

was able to consult, the court considers that the company "did not take any useful measure likely to protect" its employee, despite being aware of the danger.

“She even, on the contrary, assigned the employee to different workstations in conditions that did not allow her to regain a foothold within the company after the facts of which she had previously been the victim”, note the judges again.

If the SNCF must pay him 2,000 euros under article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the amounts of the compensation for damages have not yet been fixed.

A forensic examination is due to take place soon.

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  • Justice

  • SNCF

  • Conviction

  • Bullying

  • Violence

  • Lyons

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes