A man must return more than 27,000 euros to the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) for collecting the contributory unemployment benefit (unemployment) and later the subsidy while he was working in Norway, without also communicating his transfer of residence. The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid agrees with the public body, establishing that, although the lower court ruling had deficiencies in the proven facts, these were corrected in the legal basis.
To understand the conflict, the SEPE granted her unemployment benefits in January 2015 and, later, in June 2016, an unemployment benefit for having two minor children. However, in November 2018, the organization issued a resolution declaring that it had improperly received 27,470.80 euros corresponding to the period between January 21, 2015 and May 30, 2018.
The reason for this claim and termination of benefits was the transfer of residence abroad and the performance of a work activity in Norway since January 21, 2015, without having notified the SEPE to continue collecting aid in Spain. The Public Employment Service was made aware of this through the European form F001 sent by the competent Norwegian body.
Not satisfied with the SEPE resolution, the affected person decided to challenge it, but the Social Court number 1 of Madrid rejected his claim. Therefore, he appealed the sentence and presented an appeal before the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid.
The TSJ of Madrid confirms the return of 27,470.80 euros for improper charges
The affected person, in the appeal, requested the annulment of the sentence, alleging that a previous sentence was annulled because the proven facts did not expressly include whether he had moved to Norway or not. However, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid rejected it, explaining that, although the trial judge omitted to include this information in the proven facts, she did begin to assess the substance of the matter in the legal basis, granting factual value to the Norwegian form F001 and concluding that the worker had actually been providing services in Norway since January 2015.
Secondly, he requested to modify the proven facts, arguing that the SEPE sent the notifications to an address in Madrid instead of the one he had established for the purposes of notifications in Barcelona. Although the TSJ admits to dialectically qualifying the address history, it concludes that there was no material defenselessness nor was the legal procedure violated, since the worker presented allegations in a timely manner before the SEPE, acknowledging the proposed resolution of the administrative file.
Finally, the plaintiff questioned that the document sent by Norway was not fully translated into Spanish and denied having acted in violation of the law. The court clarified that form F001 is a standardized document in the European Union and that the SEPE did provide the translation of the relevant paragraph that demonstrated work activity in Norway.
Furthermore, the court explained that the termination of the benefit does not require proving a “fraud of law”, but rather it is enough to incur the serious infraction typified in the Law on Infringements and Sanctions in the Social Order (LISOS). This law punishes the mere fact that the worker does not notify the SEPE of a situation that causes the suspension or extinction of the right, such as moving residence abroad or starting to work, which is what happened in this case.
Consequently, the TSJ of Madrid dismissed the appeal of the affected person and ratified the termination of the benefits and the obligation to return the 27,470.80 euros, as required by the SEPE. This ruling was not final and an appeal could be filed against it for the unification of doctrine before the Supreme Court.