Ordered the Social Fund to pay an early pension for a period of over a year and a half

When considering the case, the court examined the pension documents and information on the client’s length of service.

As of the date of the repeat application — 4 October 2022 — he had:

• 31 years 2 months 7 days of insurance length of service;
• 15 years 7 months 26 days of work in the regions of the Far North;
• 8 years 2 months 28 days of work with difficult working conditions.

The court established that these indicators were sufficient for the right to an early old-age insurance pension to arise. That is, the problem was no longer the absence of the required length of service. The client had the right to a pension.

The application of 4 October 2022 was submitted through the MFC and entered the pension authority’s system.

However, the client’s payment file contained neither the application itself nor a decision on it.

It followed from the case materials that the pension authority’s employees analyzed the previous application of 2021 and returned the documents to the MFC with reference to the previous refusal.

But the new application of 2022 required independent consideration, taking into account the length of service as of the new application date. The court concluded that the obligation to consider the application was not fulfilled by the pension authority. As a result, the client was deprived of the opportunity to receive the pension due to him in a timely manner.

In this case — yes.

For the granting of an insurance pension, what matters is not only the presence of the required length of service, but also the citizen’s application for its granting.

The client made such an application on 4 October 2022.

The court established two legally significant circumstances at once:

• first — by that date, the necessary conditions for an early pension had already been met;
• second — the pension authority did not consider the received application in the manner prescribed by law.

Therefore, the consequences of the pension authority’s improper work could not be shifted onto the pensioner himself.

The court concluded that as of 4 October 2022, the client already had the necessary insurance and special length of service.

The pension authority did not take these circumstances into account in time.

At the same time, the application for a pension was actually submitted.

Therefore, the court found it necessary to restore the client’s pension rights precisely from the date of this application.

The Social Fund is obliged to pay the unpaid early old-age insurance pension:

• for the period from 4 October 2022 to 20 April 2024.

When going to court, the amount of the unpaid pension was calculated by the client as RUB 623,409.

However, the court did not recover this amount as a fixed sum.

The reason was not a refusal to recognize the client’s right to payments.

After the date of the pension’s granting changes, the pension calculation itself must change — including the applicable pension coefficients and the amount of the fixed payment.

Therefore, the court determined a more correct way to restore the right:

• to oblige the Social Fund to independently recalculate and pay the entire unpaid pension for the period established by the court.

The court did not satisfy the claim for compensation for moral harm.

The court also did not recover the claimed amount of the unpaid pension in the fixed amount of RUB 623,409, since after determining the correct date of the right to a pension, the amount of the payment must be recalculated by the pension authority.

At the same time, the main claim to restore the pension right was satisfied:

The Social Fund is obliged to pay the entire unpaid pension for the disputed period.

In 2021, the client indeed did not yet have the required special length of service.

But this did not mean that the pension authority could automatically proceed from the old refusal when a new application was made more than a year and a half later.

By October 2022, the length of service had changed.

Therefore, the new application required a new analysis and an independent decision.

It was precisely the comparison of:

• the date of application;
• the length of service as of that date;
• the actions of the pension authority;
• the subsequent granting of the pension

that made it possible to restore the client’s right for the past period.

The case was handled by Konsultant Law Firm.

The client’s interests directly in the court hearing were represented by Viktor Erofeev, a lawyer of Konsultant Law Firm.

The work on the case included analyzing the pension documents and the client’s length of service, assessing the previous applications to the pension authority, forming the position on the emergence of the right to an early pension from 4 October 2022 and representing the client’s interests in court.