A 78-year-old worker will not have to return, at least for now, the 2,947.68 euros he received from unemployment, even though he already met the requirements to access the retirement pension from the moment his last job ended. The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands explains that it does so for a procedural reason and not because it expressly endorses the collection of unemployment benefits.
According to the resolution, the man ended his last employment contract on May 31, 2021 and applied for contributory unemployment benefitwhich was recognized with effect from June 1 of that year. During the first three months I received a total of 2,947.68 euros. Shortly after, Social Security announced that he already met the requirements to retire, and that his retirement pension was recognized so he could begin collecting it on June 1.
With these data, the SEPE went to court to request the revocation of the recognition of the unemployment benefit and recover the amounts paid. He explained that this was not a mere incompatibility between two validly recognized benefits, but rather an improper recognition from the beginning. It makes sense, since if we look at what the SEPE website explains that the “right to unemployment benefit is extinguished by becoming a retirement pensioner.”
In fact, article 266 of the General Social Security Law establishes, among the requirements to access the contributory unemployment benefit, “not having reached the ordinary age required in each case to qualify for the contributory retirement pension”, unless the worker does not have the required contribution period or is in cases of suspension of contract or reduction of working hours.
Before making a claim, the right must be recognized
Now, the lower court rejected the SEPE’s claim. He understood that, before claiming the money, the beneficiary had to be recognized “his right to choose between the unemployment benefit and the retirement pension recognized with retroactive effect.” That is to say, the first ruling saw the problem more as an incompatibility between benefits than as an automatic improper payment.
The matter then reached the TSJ of the Canary Islands, but the Chamber did not resolve which of the two theses was correct. It did not analyze whether the worker improperly received unemployment benefits or whether he really had the right to choose the most favorable benefit. What it did was determine ex officio that it could not hear the SEPE appeal because the amount in dispute was lower than the legal minimum required to appeal.
The key is that the SEPE claim amounted to 2,947.68 euros. The Law Regulating Social Jurisdiction prevents this appeal in claims whose amount does not exceed 3,000 euros, and for this reason the court concludes that “the functional incompetence of this Chamber is deemed to be due to the amount.”
For all things, the ruling does not say that collecting unemployment and retirement in these circumstances is generally compatible. What explains and confirms is that, in this specific case, the SEPE’s appeal could not succeed due to a strictly procedural issue.