A man with a disability will have to return the 29,546.46 euros that the National Social Security Institute (INSS) claimed from him for having improperly collected a family benefit for dependent children parallel to his supplemented orphan’s pension. The Superior Court of Justice of Aragon has ruled in favor of the managing entity, determining that, despite the fact that the original error came from the Administration itself, maintaining two aids intended to cover the same situation of need contravenes the law and requires restitution of what was received in the last four non-prescribed years.
It all begins in 2004, when, after the death of his father, the affected person (over 18 years of age and with a disability greater than 65%) was granted an orphan’s pension that already explicitly included a financial improvement for a dependent child. Now, the problem and conflict came with the duplicity at the end of 2006.
They ask her to return 6,480.82 euros of her maternity supplement because her husband also received it and the court says that both of them can collect it
Workers who have contributed less than two years in the last fifteen will be denied the ordinary retirement pension.
Her sister requested for herself the family benefit for a dependent child over 18 years of age with a disability, which was granted by Social Security with effect from January 2007. Then, after the mother died in 2008, the same Social Security recognized her the absolute orphan’s pension supplemented by disability, maintaining in parallel and wrongly the payment of family assistance to the sister.
But it was not until May 2023 when Social Security detected the anomaly and suspended the benefit on a precautionary basis. After reviewing the case, in July of that same year he formally communicated the claim for 29,546.46 euros, corresponding to the period improperly collected since July 1, 2019. Although the Single Social Court of Huesca did not agree with him for having prescribed the benefit, later the TSJ did give it to him.
Legal incompatibility and distribution of responsibilities
According to the TSJ, the key to this ruling is that the law establishes a strict incompatibility between receiving the orphan’s pension for disabled seniors and the allowance for dependent disabled children. The Court clarifies that family aid should never have been granted and that, in the event of improper periodic payments, the right of the Administration to annul its erroneous resolution in the future remains intact, applying the prescription only to monthly payments collected beyond the last four years.
Faced with the defense of the defendant, which invoked the well-known doctrine Cakarevic of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to avoid the return alleging good faith and a purely state error, the magistrates establish a clear differentiation. They emphasize that the beneficiary is not left in an unprotected situation nor does he assume an excessive burden, since he continues to have the right to his main absolute orphan’s pension with the disability supplement, which ranges between 14,800 and 15,996 euros per year to cover his basic needs.
Furthermore, the court emphasizes that the Spanish legal system already contemplates an equitable mechanism against the Administration’s rulings: the retroactivity limit of four years. By limiting the debt to the most recent 29,546.46 euros, the rest of the money paid erroneously remains the responsibility of the Administration, achieving a proportional distribution of responsibilities.