Dismissal validated for a Colas Rail welder who fought with his boss in Indre-et-Loire

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The administrative court of Orléans disavowed a former welder of Colas Rail which contested the legality of its dismissal after being beaten with his superior after a “last minute change of schedule”.

The railway construction company based in Mettray (Indre-et-Loire), just north of the metropolis of Tourshad in fact won his case with the Ministry of Labor in September 2022 after having exercised a “hierarchical appeal” against the decision of the local unit of the Indre-et-Loire labor inspectorate which initially opposed the dismissal of this staff representative.

The former welder who fought with his superior could well be fired

The person concerned had taken the matter to administrative justice on November 14, 2022: the facts were “not of sufficient seriousness”, according to him, to justify such decision from his employer.

This elected substitute to the social and economic committee (CSE) had in fact “gone to meet his direct superior (…) on the premises of society (…), to express your dissatisfaction” after a “change of planning last minute”, relates the administrative court of Orléans in a judgment dated November 19, 2024 which has just been made public.

“On this occasion, the applicant allegedly uttered death threats and insults,” specify the Orléans judges.

The welder, in his defense, believed “to have been insulted” by his boss and had submitted to the debates a certificate from a former colleague describing their former superior as “a person agressive with a volatile mood.

Insults

“The documents in the file do not make it possible to establish (…) which of the two (…) would have initiated the invectivenor (…) that insults were uttered by the applicant against his superior,” the Orléans administrative court rules on this point.

“These elements cannot (…) justify the dismissal de M. XXX. »

Mutual aggression

“However, (…) after this oral altercation, Mr. XXX and his superior left the company premises together with the intention to fight and then physically attacked each other,” the judges continued.

“The company (…) argues that the applicant dealt the first blows to [son chef] and that he tried to master it to stop the altercation,” they summarize.

“Blows to the face [du chef] are established by the testimonials collected by the labor inspector during his investigation, by a handrail filed by the person concerned the next day but also by a medical certificate (…) of the same day noting that he had multiple excoriations of the face and trunk . »

Five days of total incapacity for work

He was then prescribed a five-day total incapacity for work. The welder assured him that his boss “would have tried to strangle him” but he only produced a medical certificate “established only nine days after the events”, notes the administrative court.

“By simply reporting reciprocal violence and not having instigated the first blow, [le requérant] – which does not bring no element likely to establish that he (…) would have found himself in a situation of self-defense – does not deny having physically struck his superior. »

The dismissal validated

His dismissal was therefore validated by the Orléans administrative court and he will even have to pay €1,000 to his former employer, Colas Rail, for his legal costs.

The welder has until January 19, 2025 to contest this judgment before the cour administrative d’appel of Versailles.

GF (PressPepper)

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