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Human Resources
Reimbursement of leave with pay: what is the starting point of the prescription?
Publié le 15 octobre 2025 - Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)
In a judgment of September 10, 2025, the Court of Cassation specified the starting point and the time limit granted to the employer to take legal action in order to obtain reimbursement of the paid leave allowance wrongly paid to the employee.
This case concerns the unfounded payment of leave pay by the employer to its employee.
The latter, ordered to reimburse that payment to the employer, submits that the legal period for claiming that sum begins from the day on which the payment was made. The employer's legal action is therefore, in her view, time-barred.
The Court of Appeal found that the employer had acted within the statutory time limit. According to her, the time limit for the employer to claim the reimbursement begins at the end of the period during which the employee should normally have taken her leave, according to the law or the collective agreement.
The Court of Cassation confirms that the employer acted within the time limit and that its claim for reimbursement is not time-barred.
Nevertheless, it states that, for a reminder of leave with pay, the limitation period begins for the employer on the day of payment whether, on that date, it ‘was in a position to detect the undue payment and to request its refund’. The Court points out that that period is 3 years.
The judgment of 10 September 2025 therefore emphasizes that the employer must have had the opportunity to identify that the payment was unjustified in order for the limitation period to begin to run.