The Pension Fund overpaid a woman 11,090 hryvnias and is demanding repayment. What was the court's decision?

The Pension Fund made an error in applying the average monthly salary coefficient when transferring a woman from one type of pension to another, which resulted in an overpayment of her pension from February 28, 2023, to November 30, 2023. She has been asked to return the amount of 11,090 hryvnias. This was stated in the decision of the Sosnitsky District Court of the Chernihiv region, published on January 9, 2025.

The woman is registered and receives a pension due to the loss of her breadwinner, having previously received an age pension. When transferring her from the age pension under Ukrainian law "On Mandatory State Pension Insurance" to the pension due to the loss of a breadwinner under the Ukrainian law "On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chernobyl Catastrophe," an incorrect individual coefficient was used to calculate her salary, specifically 2.90126 instead of 2.50445, due to a programming error. This programming error led to the incorrect application of the average monthly salary coefficient, resulting in the pension overpayment of 11,090 hryvnias from February 28, 2023, to November 30, 2023.

Case Review

The court found that the woman is registered with the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in the Chernihiv region and has been receiving a pension due to the loss of her breadwinner since April 26, 2016, for a deceased man, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chernobyl Catastrophe.” The individual recalculation dated March 4, 2024, indicates that the recalculation was made for the period from February 1, 2023, to November 30, 2024. For February 2023, a pension of 9,158 hryvnias was calculated and paid for the period from March 2023 to November 2023. A pension of 9,796 hryvnias was assigned and calculated monthly, and 10,997 hryvnias was paid monthly. The overpayment amounts to 11,090 hryvnias. A letter from the Main Department of the Pension Fund in the Chernihiv region dated November 30, 2023, informed the citizen about the pension overpayment for the period from February 28, 2023, to November 30, 2023, in the amount of 11,090 hryvnias and suggested that she voluntarily deposit the amount into the Pension Fund account or consent to a statement.

What Did the Court Decide?

The court denied the claim. The woman did not engage in any dishonest behavior that led to or could have led to the overpayment.

"The materials of the case indicate that the plaintiff did not establish the very fact of a calculation error, which is the subject of proof in this dispute, namely: there are no conclusions from audits, inspection reports, or internal investigations that could trace the path and cause of the error in pension calculation and determine that this error is a calculation error, rather than an error related to the improper performance of duties by the officials responsible for calculating, assigning, and recalculating pensions, as well as exercising control functions. Under these circumstances, the court believes that the error made by the plaintiff cannot be classified as a calculation error, as the error occurred during the pension recalculation and is purely programmatic in nature. Furthermore, the court believes that the specialists of the Pension Fund management could have verified the correctness of the calculations made before disbursing the pension to the defendant, but they did not do so, which indicates a failure to adhere to the standard of due diligence. Therefore, the court dismisses the plaintiff's arguments regarding the alleged calculation error in the recalculation of the defendant's pension, as no evidence to support these claims has been provided by the plaintiff. Considering that the plaintiff has not provided evidence confirming any dishonest behavior on the part of the defendant, and that the pension overpayment arose precisely due to a calculation error, the court concludes that there are no grounds for satisfying the claim," - emphasized the court.