French employment law - Employees, managers, senior executives – Work overload: challenge to a resignation due to excessive workload and lack of work-life balance = reclassification as unfair dismissal (cass. soc. 13/11/2025, 23-23.535)

If you are a manager on a fixed-day contract and are experiencing an excessive workload, inform your employer in writing, particularly during your annual performance reviews or during your workload review meeting. This is the key takeaway from the ruling of November 13, 2025 (23-23.535) [1], in which the French Supreme Court reclassified the resignation of a network administrator due to excessive workload.

Resignation is a unilateral act by which the employee clearly and unequivocally expresses their intention to terminate the employment contract. When an employee, without alleging any defect of consent that would invalidate their resignation, challenges it due to actions or omissions attributable to their employer, the judge must, if it appears from circumstances prior to or contemporaneous with the resignation that it was ambiguous at the time it was given, analyze it as a constructive dismissal, which has the effects of a dismissal without just cause if the alleged facts justified it, or, otherwise, as a resignation. The Court of Cassation has overturned a ruling by the Bourges Court of Appeal dated October 20, 2023.

The Court of Appeal had found that the employee, prior to resigning, had reported the significant workload during medical examinations conducted for occupational health monitoring, alerted his superiors by email on October 10, 2019, about his critical situation due to this unbearable workload, requested a visit from the occupational physician on October 24, 2019, indicating a context of work overload, and explained, during his annual performance review on February 2, 2021, and in his attached comments dated March 22, 2021, that a work-life balance was impossible, that his scope of work, too broad, spanning different time zones and without backup, resulted in a very high and constant mental workload, which he personally found very difficult to cope with. She violated Articles L1231-1, L1237-2, and L1235-1 of the French Labor Code and should have inferred the existence of a dispute that rendered the resignation ambiguous.

This ruling should be upheld.

I. Analysis.

It is established case law that an employee's resignation must demonstrate a free, clear, and unequivocal intention to terminate the employment relationship [2].

In this regard, judges examine the consent, which may have been vitiated by the circumstances surrounding the resignation, for example, in cases of psychological pressure exerted on the employee [3].

The reported decision is consistent with the social case law of the Court of Cassation.

The core of this decision lies in the fact that the employer's shortcomings in the performance of the employment relationship with the employee are taken into account when assessing the ambiguous nature of the resignation. Indeed, the court invites consideration of the lack of control over the employee's workload when classifying the consent thereof.

In this regard, the Court of Cassation emphasizes the inferential link that the Court of Appeal should have made between its own findings concerning the excessive workload and the existence of a dispute that rendered the resignation ambiguous.

The Court of Appeal acknowledges, in fact, that the employee was under pressure related to the responsibilities entrusted to him and an excessive workload, but fails to recognize any link with the ambiguous nature of the resignation.

The excessive workload thus becomes a factor in assessing the validity of the resignation.

The lack of an unequivocal intent is directly revealed by the company's organizational methods that led to this excessive workload.

Several Courts of Appeal had already recognized this principle. This is notably the case of the Paris Court of Appeal, which recently ruled that a resignation occurring within the context of an excessive workload that resulted in significant mental exhaustion rendered the resignation ambiguous [4]. Thus, this reported ruling demonstrates the importance the highest court places on monitoring employee workload, positioning it as an objective element in determining employee consent.

Employees experiencing an excessive workload are strongly advised to report it to their employer. This report of workload overload can be made during the annual performance review, the meeting regarding your fixed-day work agreement, or at any time via email. It is important to keep written evidence (email, text message, geolocation data). The Court of Cassation conducts a rigorous analysis of the links between the overall circumstances of the resignation and the termination of the contract to assess the employee's consent.

To read the full brief, click on the link below.

https://www.village-justice.com/articles/remise-cause-une-demission-pour-surcharge-travail-salarie-ayant-pas-equilibre,56016.html

Frédéric CHHUM avocat et ancien membre du conseil de l’ordre des avocats de Paris (mandat 2019-2021)

CHHUM AVOCATS (Paris, Nantes, Lille)

e-mail: chhum@chhum-avocats.com

www.chhum-avocats.fr

https://www.instagram.com/fredericchhum/?hl=fr

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