Anxiety damage (France)

An employee exposed to asbestos for years is not necessarily ill. But the employee knows that he or she runs a high risk of developing cancer, sometimes decades later, and lives with that fear. The social chamber of the French Court of Cassation recognized in 2010 that this anxiety constituted compensable damage, first for employees of establishments qualifying for asbestos early retirement. The full court opened compensation in 2019 to all employees exposed to asbestos, on the basis of the employer's safety obligation, then the social chamber extended it the same year to any harmful or toxic substance creating a high risk of serious disease. The employee must prove exposure and the resulting anxiety; the employer may escape liability by showing it took all necessary prevention measures. For insurance, it is a serial risk in the strict sense: a common exposure affects hundreds of employees at one site, who sue together, and the modest individual amounts add up. It weighs on employers' liability and on industrial groups' social liabilities, and it shifts the triggering event from the disease to the exposure itself, which complicates allocation across successive policies.