JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fifth Chamber)

13 February 2001

Case T-2/00

N

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Officials — Social security — Accident insurance — Article 73 of the Staff Regulations — Definition of ‘accident’ — HIV infection’

Full text in French   II-135

Application for:

annulment of the refusal of the Commission to recognise as an accident, within the meaning of Article 73 of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities and Article 2 of the Rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, infection of the applicant by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and a claim for damages.

Held:

The application is dismissed. Each of the parties is ordered o bear its own costs.

Summary

1. Officials — Social security — Insurance against accident and occupational disease — Medical opinion — Competence of the medical committee — Legal assessments — Excluded — Accident — Definition — Assessment by the medical committee — Consequences

   (Staff Regulations, Art. 73; Rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, Art. 2(1))

2. Officials — Social security — Insurance against accident and occupational disease — Accident — Definition — Acceptance of risk or negligence — Excluded

   (Staff Regulations, Art. 73; Rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, Art. 2(1))

3. Officials — Social security — Insurance against accident and occupational disease — Accident — Definition — Infection by HIV or any other infectious virus — Need to identify the cause of transmission

4. Officials — Actions — Action for damages — Pleas in law — No express reply from the administration to a complaint — Rejected

   (Staff Regulations, Arts 90(2), second para., and 91)

1.  The medical committee's task is confined to issuing opinions of a purely scientific nature, excluding any legal assessment.

   Whether an event may be classed as an accident within the meaning of Article 2(1) of the Rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease is solely a matter for the administration, subject to review by the Community judicature, and the medical committee cannot be called on by an institution to establish whether a health disorder and/or its cause may be considered to be an accident within the meaning of that article.

   Nevertheless, the fact that an institution asked the medical committee to express an opinion on that question cannot affect the validity of the decision taken by the institution in response to the medical committee's report. Since the appointing authority ratified that report and adopted all the committee's conclusions, it need only be stated that the legal assessments made by the medical committee, in contrast to its medical assessments, are not final. In those circumstances, the Court has jurisdiction to examine whether the appointing authority, in ratifying the medical committee's opinion referring to the definition of an accident, complied with the scope of the relevant provisions of the regulations.

   (see paras 41-44)

   See: 76/84 Rienzi v Commission [1987] ECR 315, paras 9 to 12; T-122/89 F. v Commission [1990] ECR II-517, para. 15; T-4/96 5 v Court of Justice [1997] ECR II-1125, para. 59; T-62/96 De Corte v Commission [1998] ECRSC I-A-31 and II-71, para. 78

2.  The terms acceptance of risk or negligence are not used in the definition of an accident in Article 2(1) of the Rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease. Their application to a particular case cannot therefore preclude an event or external factor from being classed as an accident, but may only serve to exclude an accident within the meaning of those rules from the cover provided for in Article 73 of the Staff Regulations.

   (see para. 59)

3.  Infection by HIV or any other infectious virus with multiple transmission routes does not in itself constitute an event or external factor within the meaning of Article 2(1) of the Rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease. Such an infection constitutes a disorder or lesion of an infectious nature, for which the exact cause and precise circumstances of its transmission must be identified in order to determine whether the official concerned has been the victim of an accident.

   (see para. 67)

4.  An official's claim for damages based on the alleged harm caused to him by the absence of a reply from an institution to his complaints must be rejected since the Staff Regulations do not require the Community institutions to send express replies to complaints made by their officials. Indeed, the second paragraph of Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations states that where no reply to the applicant's complaint is received, that is to be deemed to constitute an implied decision rejecting it, against which an appeal may be lodged under Article 91 of the Staff Regulations.

   (see paras 78-79)