Article source: "Chlordécone : c'est quoi le « préjudice d'anxiété » qui pourrait être reconnu ce mardi ?", Cyrielle Thevenin, Le Dauphiné libéré, 10/03/2025.
An appeal court in Paris is set to give its much-anticipated ruling on a damages claim filed by over 1200 plaintiffs from the French Antilles who have been exposed to the pesticide chlordecone. The chemical was very widely used in Guadeloupe and Martinique until 1993. It poses a serious risk to health and it has contaminated both the water and the soil in the islands. According to a study carried out in 2013 and 2014 by the French national hygiene and health agences (Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire [Anses], and Santé Publique France), the presence of this pesticide has been detected in over 90% of inhabitants tested. All 1286 plaintiffs are asking the court to recognise this as a case of a specific kind of emotional distress called “Préjudice d’anxiété” and to award them damages of 15,000 euros each.
Legal Definition
“Préjudice d’anxiété” is a French legal concept which the highest court of appeal in France, the Cour de Cassation, has defined as “a constant state of worry caused by the imminent risk of developing a disease as a result of exposure to a substance.” Feeling this way causes a type of psychological damage which the appeal court’s ruling has identified as a specific form of emotional distress. People can make a claim for Préjudice d’anxiété in a lawsuit against a company if they believe the company failed to put in place appropriate safety measures. They can also sue the state for failing to step in.
This specific form of emotional distress was first recognised by the Cour de Cassation in May 2010, in a case relating to workers who had been exposed to asbestos. They ruled that living in constant fear of developing a serious disease causes emotional distress that should be compensated. Since then, the scope of the definition has been extended to include “every harmful substance that poses an elevated risk of developing a serious disease”.
Conditions Need To Be Met
“It can be linked to the environment,” explains Chloé Schmidt-Sarels, a barrister who specialises in public and environmental law, “and it can also apply in the medical field, if there are faulty healthcare products.”
To establish the existence of PA, multiple conditions have to be met. “The first condition is the most difficult,” continues Schmidt-Sarels, “victims have to provide evidence that their personal circumstances gave them a high risk of exposure to the harmful substance. For example, in the chlordecone case, it is plausible that if someone lives in the house closest to the large banana plantation where the pesticide was used, they will face a higher risk than someone living further away.”
“The second condition,” she goes on, “requires you to demonstrate that the risk of developing a serious disease is sufficiently high and that the effects are sufficiently serious.” In the case of chlordecone, this risk has already been established by the Anses, whose report concluded that there was a “strong presumption of a link between the general public’s exposure to chlordecone and the risk of developing prostate cancer”.
State Defendant
As of 2022, the third condition isn’t applicable when the case involves a public institution (in this instance, the state). “You had to be aware of this risk, have a psychological disorder and produce written medical evidence. That’s over now, simply being exposed to the risk of developing a disease is enough,” says Schmidt-Sarels. However, if the defendant is a private employer, the plaintiff still has to demonstrate symptoms of anxiety (close relations testifying that the person has had panic attacks, trouble sleeping, mixed anxiety–depressive disorder, etc.).
Damages Refused In Previous Trial
If Préjude d’anxiété is established, each plaintiff can be awarded damages of between 5000 and 10,000 euros. In the chlordecone case, the administrative court in Paris ruled, in 2022, that “the plaintiffs have not provided sufficient evidence of their personal circumstances to justify their claim for Préjudice d’anxiété.” The ruling goes on: “the only circumstantial claim made by the plaintiffs (that they had lived in the French Antilles during the period of the pesticide’s use, ed.) is insufficient to establish exposure to a significant risk of developing one of the serious diseases.”
Translated by Johanna Leclair, Tabatha Picard and Nissrine Vanstaen.
Editing by Sam Trainor.