Information Note on the Court’s case-law 237
February 2020
Sanofi Pasteur v. France - 25137/16
Judgment 13.2.2020 [Section V]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Starting point of the prescription period for compensation proceedings held to be the date that the illness became consolidated, in the context of a progressive illness: no violation
Facts – After being injected with a vaccine produced by the applicant company, an individual (hereafter, “X”) developed various illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, a progressive illness that was not amenable to consolidation. She brought a civil action for damages against the applicant company and was awarded compensation.
The applicant company argued that the legal prescription period for a compensation claim on account of a defective vaccine (ten years) began to run from the date of purchase of the vaccine. However, the court of appeal held that the prescription period ran from the date the illness was stabilised (“consolidation”). In the absence of stabilisation in the present case, given that it was a progressive chronic illness, the action for damages had not therefore become time-barred.
The applicant company requested that an application for a preliminary ruling be made to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The Court of Cassation merely indicated that it had decided to reject the appeal on points of law and stated that there was no need to refer the case to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling.
Law – Article 6 § 1 (as regards the method for calculating the starting point for the limitation period in respect of a claim for damages)
The claim for damages was not time-barred when X’s multiple sclerosis was diagnosed. That being stated, the right of access to a court was at stake when a claim for damages by a person who had suffered bodily harm became time-barred before he or she could effectively assess the damage sustained. However, in view of the progressive nature of X’s illness and given that her illness had not stabilised, she was unable to assess the damage fully and, in consequence, could not bring legal proceedings against the company which had manufactured the vaccine on a date prior to that stabilisation in order to obtain full compensation.
The situation was therefore that a right derived by one person from the Convention was in conflict with a right derived, on an equal basis, from the Convention by another person: on the one hand, the applicant company’s right to legal certainty; on the other, X’s right of access to a court.
In such a situation, the balancing of the conflicting individual interests was a difficult matter, which indicated that the State had to be granted a wide margin of appreciation. With particular regard to the balancing exercise to be conducted, in respect of the limitation period on claims for damages, between the victim’s right of access to a court and the defendant’s right to legal certainty, the domestic courts were required in applying the relevant procedural rules to avoid both excessive formalism which would affect the fairness of the procedure, and excessive flexibility that would result in removing the procedural requirements established by law.
French law provided for prescription of non-contractual civil liability. At the time of the relevant facts, the limitation period was ten years, and the Court of Cassation had specified that, where an action concerned compensation for physical injury, it began to run from the date of stabilisation. The positive law was intended to enable the victim to obtain full compensation for the physical harm sustained, the extent of which could only be ascertained after his or her condition had stabilised. The Court considered that it could not call into question, as such, the choice made by the national law to attach greater weight to the right of access to a court of individuals who had sustained physical injury than it accorded to the right to legal certainty of the persons who were liable for those injuries. In this connection, the Court reiterated the importance attached by the Convention to the protection of physical integrity, which was covered by Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention. In addition, the method of calculation used in the French legal system made it possible to take account of the fact that the needs of persons suffering from a progressive illness such as multiple sclerosis were likely to increase as their condition developed, in terms for example of the assistance required.
The positive law provided for a prescription period and fixed the starting point of this period, which was, however, pushed back until such time as stabilisation had occurred. Furthermore, in the absence of stabilisation, the starting point for the limitation period began to run, at the latest, from the date on which the person who had sustained the physical injury died, in which case legal proceedings by the successors became time-barred ten years after the death. Strictly speaking, there had therefore been no statutory limitation.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
The Court also concluded, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the failure to provide reasons for the dismissal of the request for a referral to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling.
Article 41: finding of a violation sufficient in itself in respect of the non-pecuniary damage.
(See also Oleksandr Volkov v. Ukraine, 21722/11, 9 January 2013, Information Note 159; Eşim v. Turkey, 59601/09, 17 September 2013; Howald Moor and Others v. Switzerland, 52067/10 and 41072/11, 11 March 2014, Information Note 172)
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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