Case C-348/06 P

Commission of the European Communities

v

Marie-Claude Girardot

‛Appeal — Temporary staff — Action for damages — Loss of an opportunity to be recruited — Actual and certain damage — Determination of extent of reparation for damage’

Opinion of Advocate General Mengozzi delivered on 22 November 2007   I - 836

Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber), 21 February 2008   I - 863

Summary of the Judgment

1. Officials — Actions — Unlimited jurisdiction — Reparation for material damage arising from the loss of a chance as a result of unlawful rejection of a candidature

   (Staff Regulations, Art. 91(1))

2. Appeals — Grounds — Mere repetition of the pleas and arguments put forward before the Court of First Instance — Inadmissibility

   (Art. 225 EC; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 112(1)(c))

1.  Under Article 91(1) of the Staff Regulations, the Court of First Instance has, in disputes of a financial character, unlimited jurisdiction, pursuant to which it has the power, if need be of its own motion, to order the defendant to pay compensation for the damage caused by the defendant’s wrongful act and, in such a case, taking account of the circumstances of the case, to assess the damage suffered ex aequo et bono. In addition, when the Court of First Instance has determined that there is damage, it alone has jurisdiction to decide, within the confines of the claim and subject to compliance with the obligation to state reasons, how and to what extent reparation for the damage should be provided.

   In that regard, the method used to determine the extent of reparation for the damage resulting from the loss of a chance for a member of the temporary staff whose candidature has been unlawfully rejected of being recruited to a post within a Community institution, adopted in the domestic law of several Member States, based on a criterion relating to loss of earnings, establishing the difference between the earnings aspired to and the earnings actually received, then assessing, as a percentage, the chance of being recruited in order to weight that loss, necessarily leads the Community judicature to rely on a series of suppositions, by their nature uncertain, but which fall within that appraisal of the facts by the Court of First Instance and the discretion at its disposal.

   (see paras 45, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 72-74)

2.  It follows from Article 225 EC, the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal.

   That requirement is not satisfied by an appeal which seeks not to identify errors of law allegedly vitiating the reasoning of the Court of First Instance in the judgment under appeal but rather, by repeating arguments relied on at first instance and putting forward supposed new evidence, seeks to challenge the assessment of facts which that Court undertook in that judgment.

   (see paras 88, 91)