In Saint-Lô, in the Manche, these former employees of an SME specializing in plumbing and electricity, dismissed 15 years ago, have just received a visit from a bailiff who asks them to reimburse their severance pay. .
The story begins in 2008. The Lebrun company, based in Saint-Lô, in the Manche department, which employs twelve people, goes bankrupt. His boss is then in rental management. A system that allows him to be elusive and not have to pay redundancies. The employees occupy their workshop for two months: no more electricity, no more pay, no more work. And, finally, the judicial representative who takes care of the liquidation ends up dismissing them all, with, of course, compensation, which ranges from 5,000 to 15,000 euros. A decision of the Prud’hommes of 2010 will also grant them compensation for moral damage.
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But everything changes in 2022, since the dismissed workers had appealed this decision to obtain compensation for dismissal without real and serious cause. At the end of a long legal procedure, in March 2022, another court of appeal, that of Rouen, considers that “the dismissal for economic reasons is deprived of effect“.
Consequence: the former employees of Lebrun are no longer dismissed. It was then that, on its own and without the judgment requiring it, the wage guarantee scheme, the AGS, asked to recover the compensation it deemed undue. A bailiff is in charge of the case and contacts the former employees, with an order to pay within two weeks.
Difficult situation for these employees
“If I pay, I have nothing left at all”explains one of them, questioned by France 3 Normandy. I have 11,300 euros to pay. I’m going to break a PEL”. Another announces that he will have to make a credit to the bank to pay. Another said he felt like “a delinquent who is asked to pay debts”.
The lawyer for these employees, Maître Elise Brand, is formal: the employees must not reimburse anything. There is no enforceable title, the Court of Appeal does not ask, in its judgment, for any reimbursement, she says. This bailiff who comes to their house, does so “in a wild way“, she said. It’s “might versus right“. For her, there is no doubt: these indemnities remain due to the employees. But the anxiety remains: the former employees could now appeal to the Court of Cassation.