The 130 former ArcelorMittal employees from several Moselle sites are disappointed. The labor council of Thionville rejected their request on Friday for prescription. They wanted to have their anxiety damage recognized for exposure to asbestos. “The industrial tribunal considered that the requests were time-barred, and therefore rejected them”, told AFP Me Romain Bouvet, the lawyer for the employees, who each claimed 15,000 euros.
The question of the date on which the former employees of the Gandrange, Rombas or Florange sites, specifies France Bleu Lorraine-Nord, had been informed of their exposure to asbestos, and therefore of the possible prescription of the file, was the one of the aspects on which the court was invited to consider.
At the hearing, last March, the defense lawyer, Me Joumana Frangié-Moukanas, had assured that the action was prescribed, and pointed out the absence of proof of personal injury suffered by each of the employees. Requested, the cabinet of Me Frangié-Moukanas did not respond to AFP’s requests.
An appeal procedure envisaged
“We do not yet have the reasons for the decision, so I have no information on the date which could be retained, but the court considered that the employees had been informed for more than two years during the referral to the prud’hommes”, added Romain Bouvet, expressing his “deep disappointment”.
“In no case did the employer provide a precise, indisputable date of the information on exposure to asbestos and the associated consequences, so we considered that there was no possible starting point for the prescription,” he argued. “We will most definitely be appealing. »
Initially, 132 ex-employees had brought an action against their former employer. Two of them died before the decision of the industrial tribunal, according to Romain Bouvet. Consecrated in 2010 but reserved until 2019 for asbestos workers, the notion of anxiety damage allows compensation for people who are not sick but are worried about becoming sick.
The SNCF, Renault Trucks or even the State, under the former public establishment Charbonnages de France, have already been ordered to pay compensation to former employees exposed to toxic substances.