The Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) of Aragon has confirmed the refusal of Social Security to grant a permanent disability pension requested by a self-employed construction worker. As stated in the ruling STSJ AR 666/2026, the plaintiff did not comply with the minimum contribution requirement required by the General Social Security Law (LGSS).
The ruling, which was handed down this past April, dismisses the appeal presented by the worker against a previous ruling by the Social Court number 8 of Zaragoza and endorses the decision of the INSS (National Social Security Institute). The bricklayer was demanding a absolute permanent disability (subsidiarily total) alleging that his illnesses prevented him from working normally.
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The plaintiff was 61 years old when in 2023 he requested permanent disability from the INSS and accredited 1,436 days of contributions in Spain and 3,536 days in Romania. But the regulations requested that at least 736 days of contributions be accredited in the 10 years prior to the causative event. According to the ruling, there were only 300 days of contributions in that period.
He had a recognized 33% disability
The sentence includes the clinical picture in which “serious axional neuropathy” is alleged, as well as a chronic ulcer in one of the legs and diabetes. In addition, he had several functional limitations derived from a sensory-motor polyneuropathy in the lower extremities.
For this reason, the Aragonese Institute of Social Services had already recognized a 33% disability. The ruling states that even these ailments could justify a total permanent incapacity for their usual profession on the construction site because it is a very physically demanding job.
The debate focused on the waiting requirement, that is, the minimum time required to access the contributory pension. The regulatory base that appears in the procedure amounts to 361.96 euros per month, an amount on which the eventual pension would have been calculated in the event that the claim had been successful.
Justice did not take into account the ‘parenthesis doctrine’
The worker’s defense asked to apply the so-called ‘parenthesis doctrine’, which is a jurisprudential interpretation that allows certain periods without contributions to be excluded when the worker cannot work for reasons beyond his control, such as, for example, involuntary unemployment or serious illnesses.
But the TSJ considered that it was not proven that the periods without registration as a job seeker were due exclusively to his state of health. The Chamber recalled that the worker spent several months without renewing his employment request, both in 2011 and 2017, considering that these interruptions break the continuity required by the Supreme Court.
Therefore, the court dismisses the appeal and fully confirms the INSS resolution, without imposing costs on any of the parties. The sentence can still be appealed before the Supreme Court through an appeal for unification of doctrine.