The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia has ruled in favor of a worker who will see her retirement pension increased to 2,359.36 euros per month after it was demonstrated that her company did not contribute for her for years and, when it did, it was below what it was entitled to. In this way, the TSJ confirms that the company is directly responsible for the payment of a part of the pension due to this lack of quoteas established by Social Security regulations in the event of serious business breaches.
According to the ruling, the worker was working for this company from 2000 to 2009 “without said foundation paying social security contributions,” despite work full time. It was not until after 2009 when her situation was partially regularized, but even then, the Labor Inspection issued liquidation reports for “under-quotation”, since the company was contributing for lower bases than the actual salaries received by the employee.
Social Security, when recalculating the pension with the real data and not with what the company had falsely declared, determined that the real regulatory base should be 2,359.36 euros and not the lower one that was initially stated. For this reason, the court declares the “responsibility of the company for 23.24% of said pension, condemning it to pay said percentage.” This means that almost a quarter of the retiree’s monthly payroll will have to be covered by the former company as punishment for not having paid the fees on time.
Social Security will pay everything to protect the retiree
One of the key points of this ruling is that it protects the pensioner’s pocket against possible non-payments or insolvencies of the company. Although the company is responsible for paying that 23.24%, the court orders that Social Security be the one who pays the full payroll month by month.
The sentence explains that the retiree You will receive 100% of your pension (95.53% of the accredited regulatory base) without having to claim each month from your former employer, since Social Security will be in charge of claiming that money from the foundation.
Although the company tried to allege that the process had been unjustifiably delayed, the TSJ did not accept it, since the person who really harmed was “the beneficiary who has seen how the recognition of her right to receive the retirement pension in a higher dimension has been excessively delayed.”
The employment relationship cannot be denied
The company also tried to modify the story of the events, trying to show that the employment relationship was not such or that the amounts were different. Despite this, the TSJ recalled that there was already a final ruling from 2014 that proved the employment relationship and the lack of contributions.
Since there was already a previous judicial resolution that confirmed that the worker was “without the said foundation paying the fees”, the court applies the principle of res judicata.