The Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of the National Social Security Institute (INSS) that demanded from a woman the full return of 21,766.82 euros collected over four years as an orphan’s pension. The beneficiary had received the benefit since 2009, but it was not until 2016 when Social Security realized that another person had been collecting a widow’s pension from the same deceased since 2010. For this reason, the administration demanded a full refund, but the court has determined that she will only have to return three months, since there was neither concealment nor responsibility on the part of the beneficiary.
According to the details of the sentence to which he has had access NewsWorkthe woman began collecting the orphan’s pension in 2009 after the death of her father and years later, in 2010, Social Security also recognized a widow’s pension in favor of another person linked to the same deceased. In this sense, and key to the ruling, is that Social Security did not realize, update or review the amount of the orphan’s pension at that time, despite having access to all the necessary information.
Four years later, Social Security continued to pay the benefit with a percentage higher than that corresponding to it by law when there are concurrent pensions. According to the Supreme Court, it was the administration itself that “had at its disposal all the data to be able to act and regularize the orphan’s pension when it subsequently recognized the concurrent widow’s pension.”
Despite this, Social Security, when it detected the error, proceeded to demand that the woman return 21,766.82 euros in undue charges. The woman, not satisfied, decided to take the case to court.
I only had to return three months
In the Social Court No. 5 of Seville, this ruled in favor of Social Security, indicating that the woman had to return the full amount. Not satisfied, he appealed to the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia, which partially upheld his appeal. That is, I would not have to return the entire amount, but yes, the last three months. In its ruling, the Chamber explained that “we maintain the administrative resolution that modifies the percentage of the orphan’s benefit, but we only grant a retroactivity of three months to the claim for differences in benefit unduly received.”
Now, Social Security was not satisfied, so it decided to appeal this time to the Supreme Court to unify doctrine. Although the Social Security presented a contradictory ruling issued by the TSJ of Catalonia in a similar case, the High Court explained that such a contradiction did not exist, since in the Catalan case the beneficiary “knew that he did not meet the requirements to access” the benefit and did not communicate it, while in this case, the woman “was not aware of said circumstance.”
For this reason, the Supreme Court rejected the INSS appeal and confirmed the ruling of the TSJ of Andalusia. The high court ended by saying that “the beneficiary of the orphan’s pension received it, in the amount initially recognized, for the entire time that the managing entity is now claiming from her,” and that it was Social Security that acted late despite having the necessary data to regularize the situation. Therefore, the woman will only have to return the amounts corresponding to the last three months before the review, “without imposition of costs.”