The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a woman and she will not have to return 21,766.82 euros to the National Social Security Institute (INSS) of the orphan’s pension that she was collecting for four years, which apparently were improper payments. Although the beneficiary had received the aid since 2009, the entity did not detect until 2016 that there was a concurrent widow’s pension since 2010. Justice has limited the reimbursement to only three months, concluding that the error was administrative and that the woman did not hide information nor was she responsible for the ruling.
As detailed in the ruling, the woman began to collect the orphan’s pension in 2009 after the death of her father, but due to an administrative error in 2010, the widow’s pension was also granted to another person for the same deceased, that is, two benefits were obtained from the death. The problem (and point of conflict in this ruling) is that Social Security did not review or update the payment at that time and even though it had “all the data at its disposal to be able to act” and avoid the ruling.
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Thus, four years later and thinking that everything was correct, Social Security continued to pay the benefit with a higher percentage than the one to which he should have been entitled. As the Supreme Court explains, the error was made by the administration itself, since “it 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.”
Even so, when Social Security detected the error, it asked the woman to return 21,766.82 euros in concept of improper payments of that orphan’s pension. The woman, not being satisfied, decided to take the case to court.
I only had to return three months
Although the Social Court number 5 of Seville agreed with the Social Security, indicating that it should return the money, it was not satisfied and filed an appeal with the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia, who did agree with it, although partially. That is, you will not have to repay the entire benefit, but you will have to return the first three months.
In the 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.” Social Security, not being satisfied now, decided to file an appeal and go this time to the Supreme Court to unify doctrine.
Although the Social Security explained that there was already a ruling issued by the TSJ of Catalonia in which it agreed with the Social Security, the High Court explained that there was no such contradiction, 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.”
Thus and for everything explained, 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.