Recognition of an accident or an occupational disease opens the right to specific compensation: free care, daily allowances in the event of sick leave , annuity when the work capacity is reduced. This broad coverage concerns all employees, including during their trial period. It extends to beneficiaries of the RSA during their integration activities, to the unemployed participating in job search actions prescribed, to pupils in technical and vocational education and to students for accidents occurring during this teaching or during internships.
Accidents at work and occupational disease: definitions
An illness or an accident occurring in a professional context opens rights to its assumption of responsibility and to the compensation of the damages which result from this. Consequently, their recognition responds to a specific context. The use of the work comp attorneys comes essential there.
Work accident
A work accident is defined as one that occurs during work (including breaks) and in the workplace while the employee is under the authority of the employer. It can occur within the company’s premises (parking lot, canteen), or when the employee is on a business trip at the request of the employer. The accident must have caused bodily or psychological injury (certain cases of nervous breakdown are recognized). All employees benefit from this, regardless of their employment contract (permanent contract, fixed-term contract, temporary work, etc.).
Commuting accident
The commuting accident occurs to an employee during the outward or return journey between his main or secondary residence and his place of work, or between the company and the usual place where he takes his meals. If the journey is interrupted or modified for a reason related to the necessities of everyday life (purchase of food, medicine, administrative procedures), the employee remains protected if he is the victim of an accident. On the other hand, it is no longer so if he turns away from his journey for a personal reason (to visit a friend). Accidents that occur as part of regular carpooling meet the definition of commuting accidents.
Occupational disease
The disease entered in one of the tables listing these diseases is presumed to be occupational. The employee must prove that he has been exposed in the usual way to the risk of illness . An illness can also be recognized as professional by recourse to individual expertise, entrusted to a regional committee for recognition of occupational illnesses, in two hypotheses: the illness of which the employee complains appears well in a table, but he does not meet all the conditions described; the illness is not listed in a table, but it was directly and essentially caused by the employee’s usual work and resulted in his death or permanent incapacity for work of at least 25%. Regularly updated, these tables are appended to the Social Security Code.
Mandatory declarations
The notification procedure differs depending on whether the employee is the victim of an accident or suffers from an occupational disease. Note that a temporary worker must make a declaration to the “user” company and to his temporary work agency, his employer, within 24 hours of the accident.
