A dismissal must be notified by a motivated registered letter. When the employer makes its decision to terminate an employment contract known either to the employee, or to others, before that letter is sent, this is considered a verbal dismissal, which is necessarily without real and serious grounds. Such a dismissal cannot be rectified by a later letter. The Court of Cassation applied this, for instance, where colleagues were told by a letter that an employee had left before that employee was notified of his dismissal, or where a human resources director informed an employee of his dismissal by telephone on the day the letter was sent. Conversely, there is no verbal dismissal where the employer’s intention was expressed neither publicly nor to the employee, or where the person making such announcement has no power to dismiss.
In this case, during a WhatsApp exchange, an employee’s line manager told her unambiguously that the company intended to dismiss her, for a reason not yet defined beyond it being personal. She was dismissed two months later on economic grounds and argued that she had in fact been verbally dismissed at the time of the exchange.
The Court of Cassation approved the lower courts’rejection of that claim. The employment relationship had continued normally until she was called to the pre-dismissal meeting ; this was incompatible with a verbal dismissal taking immediate effect. Merely informing an employee that dismissal is being considered is not enough.
The ruling distinguishes the announcement of an intention from the decision to end the contract, but it is not a licence for informal messaging. A message conveying a completed and immediate termination (« it’s over, don’t come back”), the withdrawal of an employee’s work tools (company car, keys, badges, files) or an instruction to leave the company for good would each be treated as a verbal dismissal. Screenshots of instant messages – WhatsApp, text messages, Teams – are readily produced before the labour court.
