French Company Liable For Employee’s Death After Sex While On A Business Trip

A French company has been found liable for the death of an employee who had a cardiac arrest while having sex with a stranger on a business trip.

The man, who was identified in court documents only as Xavier, travelled in 2013 to the Loiret region in central France as a security technician for the rail engineering company TSO, New York Times reports.

After work one night, he had sex with a woman, a “perfect stranger”, at her house before returning to his hotel. He later died from a heart attack said to have been linked to the encounter.

A health insurance fund decided that the death resulted from a work-related accident, but TSO appealed, saying that the employee had interrupted his work trip for an adulterous relationship and had therefore acted outside the company’s purview.

The Court of Appeal in Paris upheld the insurance fund’s decision in a ruling released in May, but the case gained public attention only after the details were published on LinkedIn by a French lawyer, Sarah Balluet, who specializes in labour disputes.

Its ruling further stated that an employee on a business trip is entitled to social protection “over the whole time of his mission” and regardless of the circumstances.