JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Third Chamber)

29 February 2012

Case F‑100/10

AM

v

European Parliament

(Civil service — Officials — Social security — Insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease — Article 73 of the Staff Regulations — Refusal to recognise as an accident a stroke — Medical Committee — Principle of collegiality)

Application: brought under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty by virtue of Article 106a thereof, in which AM seeks, principally, annulment of the decision of 12 November 2009 by which the Parliament refused to regard the stroke which he suffered on 5 March 2006 as an accident within the meaning of Article 73 of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union, and, secondly, an order that the Parliament pay him EUR 25 000 in compensation for the material damage he suffered and EUR 50 000 in respect of the non-material damage he suffered.

Held: The action is dismissed. AM is to pay all the costs.

Summary

1.      Officials — Social security — Insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease — Expert medical report — Discretion of the Medical Committee — Judicial review — Limits — Obligation to state reasons — Scope

(Staff Regulations, Art. 73; Rules on insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, Art. 23)

2.      Officials — Social security — Insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease — Expert medical report — Refusal of one of the members of the Medical Committee to sign the report — Procedural defect — None — Conditions

(Staff Regulations, Art. 73; Rules on insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, Art. 22(3))

1.      The duty of the Medical Committee provided for in Article 23 of the Common rules on the insurance of officials of the European Union against the risk of accident and of occupational disease to assess medical questions entirely objectively and independently requires, first, that the Committee has available to it all the information it might need and, second, that it has full discretionary power. The medical assessments, properly speaking, made by the Medical Committee must be regarded as definitive where they have been issued under proper conditions. The Union judicature has the power only to ascertain, first, whether the Committee was constituted and functioned properly and, second, whether its opinion is lawful, in particular whether it contains a statement of reasons allowing an assessment to be made of the considerations on which it is based, and whether it establishes a comprehensible link between the medical findings it contains and the conclusions reached.

In the light of the limited judicial review exercised by the court, criticism alleging a manifest error of assessment by the Medical Committee must fail. That review must have regard to the actual nature of the work of the Medical Committee, the purpose of which is not to settle an exchange of arguments, but to produce medical findings.

Where the Medical Committee is required to answer complex medical questions relating to a difficult diagnosis or to the causal link between the disorder from which the official concerned is suffering and the performance of his duties with an institution, it must indicate in its opinion the factors in the file on which it has relied and, in the event of significant discrepancy, its reasons for departing from certain relevant medical reports drawn up at an earlier stage which were more favourable to the official.

(see paras 65, 66, 68, 85, 110)

See:

19 January 1988, 2/87 Biedermann v Court of Auditors, para. 16

15 December 1999, T‑300/97 Latino v Commission, para. 41; 15 December 1999, T‑27/98 Nardone v Commission, paras 30, 68 and 87; 16 June 2000, T‑84/98 C v Council, para. 43; 27 June 2000, T‑47/97 Plug v Commission, para. 117; 26 February 2003, T‑145/01 Latino v Commission, para. 47

14 September 2010, F‑79/09 AE v Commission, paras 64, 65, 84 and 89 and the case-law cited therein; 11 May 2011, F‑53/09 J v Commission, paras 102 and 104

2.      The Medical Committee may decide by a majority of its members to conclude its proceedings and its report is not vitiated by a formal defect because one of its members has refused to sign it when it is established that the member who has refrained from signing had an opportunity to put forward his point of view to the other two members.

(see paras 73, 78)

See:

10 December 1987, 277/84 Jänsch v Commission, para. 14; Biedermann v Court of Auditors, paras 10 and 16

29 January 1998, T‑62/96 De Corte v Commission, para. 81; 15 November 2000, T‑20/00 Camacho-Fernandes v Commission, paras 31 and 32