Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:50
Date: 2001-02-13
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Fifth Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Conditions of engagement;Administrative complaint;Rules on cover
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Action for damages - unfounded

SUMMARY — CASE T-2/00 
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. 
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N v COMMISSION 
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] ECR-SC 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 
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SUMMARY - CASE T-2/00 
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) 
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