The impact on future employability (incidence professionnelle) is assessed by identifying each professional consequence of the injury other than the loss of income tied to the permanent disability: loss of value on the labour market, loss of chance, increased arduousness, giving up one's occupation, retraining costs, loss of pension. This permanent head of the Dintilhac classification (nomenclature Dintilhac, the court-endorsed classification of heads of personal-injury loss) complements loss of future professional earnings without duplicating it.
The Dintilhac report (July 2005) places incidence professionnelle among the permanent pecuniary losses, after consolidation (the date of stabilisation). It defines it in contrast to loss of future professional earnings (pertes de gains professionnels futurs, "PGPF"): its purpose is to compensate not the loss of income tied to the permanent disability, but the peripheral effects of the injury on the professional sphere (Dintilhac report, p. 35-36).
The report lists several components:
| Component | What the report covers |
|---|---|
| Loss of value on the labour market | The victim's loss of value on the labour market, caused by the injury |
| Loss of a professional chance | A professional opportunity lost because of the injury |
| Increased arduousness | The greater arduousness of the job held, attributable to the injury |
| Giving up the occupation | The need to give up the occupation held before the injury for another one, chosen because of the disability |
| Retraining costs | The costs of professional retraining, training or change of post, borne by social security or by the victim |
| Loss of pension | The shortfall in future income attributable to the injury that reduces the retirement pension |
The report specifies that this list is indicative. It states, for example, that compensation may be provided under this head for a stay-at-home mother, for the loss of the possibility of returning to the labour market, and points out that for children and adolescents who have not yet entered working life, loss of professional earnings can only be estimated.
For where the head sits in the overall scheme, see the nomenclature Dintilhac and its heads of damage.
PGPF compensate the loss or reduction of income resulting from the permanent incapacity. According to the report, incidence professionnelle complements them, without leading to double compensation for the same loss. The Cour de cassation has drawn this boundary in several published judgments:
| Judgment | What the Court held |
|---|---|
| Cass. 2e civ., 13 September 2018, no. 17-26.011 | Compensating PGPF on the basis of a life annuity, for a victim deprived of any professional activity, precludes additional compensation for incidence professionnelle. The lower courts had awarded incidence professionnelle on the ground that the victim could no longer contemplate working |
| Cass. 2e civ., 23 May 2019, no. 18-17.560 | Appeal dismissed, the Court upholding the court of appeal: the loss of chance of a professional promotion, compensated as incidence professionnelle, is a loss distinct from PGPF calculated on the former salary, which did not factor in the expected career progression |
| Cass. 2e civ., 6 May 2021, no. 19-23.173 | The loss resulting from the social devaluation felt by the victim because of their permanent exclusion from the world of work is compensable as incidence professionnelle. In that case, where the victim was absolutely unable to resume any activity, the court of appeal should have examined, as it had been asked to, whether this loss was established |
In an unpublished judgment, the Cour de cassation quashed a court of appeal ruling that had refused this head for lack of evidence of income, even though it found that the victim's state of health, while not preventing them from working as an estate agent, made their travel more arduous (Cass. 2e civ., 27 November 2025, no. 24-13.616, unpublished).
The Dintilhac report also places within this head the costs of professional retraining, training or change of post.
The Dintilhac report attaches loss of pension to incidence professionnelle. The Cour de cassation held, in a published judgment, that a victim aged 55 at consolidation, dismissed on grounds of medical unfitness, whose loss of employment is attributable to the harmful event and who suffers a total loss of future professional earnings, has necessarily suffered, absent evidence to the contrary, a reduction in their pension rights, which do not depend solely on the number of validated quarters (Cass. 2e civ., 6 July 2023, no. 21-25.667, published in the Bulletin, handed down in a compensation case before the commission d'indemnisation des victimes d'infractions, France's criminal-injuries compensation commission). The Court quashed the judgment that had rejected the claim on the ground that the workplace-accident annuity would continue to be paid after retirement and that daily sickness benefits and compensated unemployment counted towards validated quarters.
By contrast, in an unpublished judgment, the Cour de cassation held that compensating PGPF on the basis of a whole-life capitalisation coefficient (euro de rente viager, the capital needed today to pay €1 a year for the rest of the victim's life) necessarily compensated the loss of pension rights, and quashed a court of appeal ruling that had compensated the same loss twice (Cass. 2e civ., 28 March 2019, no. 18-18.832, unpublished).
Incidence professionnelle is a permanent loss. For a victim who was never consolidated and who died more than nine years after the accident, the Cour de cassation held that the limitation of their professional prospects and the loss of chance of promotions had to be compensated as loss of current professional earnings (pertes de gains professionnels actuels), and not as a stand-alone head of current incidence professionnelle (Cass. 2e civ., 25 April 2024, no. 22-17.229, published in the Bulletin). As there was no double compensation, it nevertheless dismissed the ground of appeal on this point. The same judgment quashes a valuation presented as a flat rate: compensation must match the loss and cannot be assessed on a flat-rate basis.
Incidence professionnelle is a head against which benefits paid by third-party payers (tiers payeurs) are set off. Recourse actions are exercised head by head, only against the compensation for the losses covered, excluding personal losses (article 31 of Law no. 85-677 of 5 July 1985). On the benefits themselves, the Cour de cassation held:
The valuation starts from the medical expert assessment (restrictions, fitness for the post, need for retraining) and the employment exhibits (contract, payslips, opinion of the occupational physician, career statement), then:
Across 3,626 decisions published since 2020 in which this head is quantified, the median amount awarded for incidence professionnelle is €20,000, and half of the decisions fall between €10,000 and €40,000. Source: personal-injury decisions published as open data (Judilibre and administrative courts), handed down since 2020, processed by Plato. Amounts awarded by the court, excluding reductions for loss of chance or the victim's own fault.
These amounts vary widely from one decision to the next, because they depend on age, occupation and the components accepted. Plato, the only AI specialised in personal injury, searches its base of more than 84,000 quantified decisions for decisions similar to the file, filtered by head, amount and rating, and ties each figure to the decision it comes from: see Plato for personal injury. For the full method, see the guide to valuing a personal-injury file.
What is incidence professionnelle in personal injury?
It is the permanent pecuniary head of the Dintilhac classification that compensates the consequences of the injury on working life other than the loss of income tied to the permanent disability. The report cites, in a list it describes as indicative, loss of value on the labour market, loss of a professional chance, increased arduousness, giving up the occupation, retraining costs and loss of pension.
What is the difference between incidence professionnelle and loss of future professional earnings?
PGPF compensate the income lost after consolidation. Incidence professionnelle compensates, according to the Dintilhac report, the peripheral effects of the injury on the professional sphere. The Cour de cassation refuses to compensate the same loss twice, but allowed, when dismissing an appeal, both to be awarded for the loss of chance of a promotion, a loss distinct from PGPF (Cass. 2e civ., 23 May 2019, no. 18-17.560).
Is a victim who will never be able to work again entitled to incidence professionnelle?
They may claim it for a loss distinct from the loss of income. The Cour de cassation held compensable under this head the social devaluation felt because of permanent exclusion from the world of work (Cass. 2e civ., 6 May 2021, no. 19-23.173), but had held in 2018 that compensating the PGPF, on the basis of a life annuity, of a victim deprived of any future professional activity precludes additional compensation for incidence professionnelle, the lower courts having awarded incidence professionnelle on the ground that the victim could no longer contemplate working (Cass. 2e civ., 13 September 2018, no. 17-26.011).
Does loss of pension rights fall under incidence professionnelle?
The Dintilhac report attaches it there. For a victim aged 55 at consolidation, dismissed on grounds of medical unfitness, whose loss of employment is attributable to the harmful event and who suffers a total loss of future professional earnings, the Cour de cassation held that they necessarily suffered, absent evidence to the contrary, a reduction in their pension rights (Cass. 2e civ., 6 July 2023, no. 21-25.667). In an unpublished judgment, however, it held that PGPF capitalised on a whole-life basis (euro de rente viager) already compensated this loss (Cass. 2e civ., 28 March 2019, no. 18-18.832).
Is the invalidity pension set off against incidence professionnelle?
The invalidity pension does not compensate the permanent functional deficit (Cass. 2e civ., 6 July 2023, no. 21-24.283) and is therefore set off only against loss of future professional earnings and incidence professionnelle (Cass. 2e civ., 10 October 2024, no. 22-22.642). The court must first value incidence professionnelle, then set off where appropriate (Cass. 2e civ., 15 December 2022, no. 21-10.783, concerning an invalidity annuity paid by the New Caledonia fund).
How much is incidence professionnelle worth?
In decisions published since 2020, the median amount awarded for incidence professionnelle is €20,000, with half of the decisions falling between €10,000 and €40,000. The amount for a specific file depends on age, occupation and the components accepted, which only comparison with similar decisions can pin down.
Can incidence professionnelle be claimed before consolidation?
For a victim who was never consolidated and died more than nine years after the accident, the Cour de cassation held that limited professional prospects and the loss of chance of promotions fell under loss of current professional earnings, and not under a stand-alone incidence professionnelle. As there was no double compensation, it nevertheless dismissed the ground of appeal on this point, but quashed the sum awarded for incidence professionnelle, which had been assessed on a flat-rate basis (Cass. 2e civ., 25 April 2024, no. 22-17.229).