Odesa court does not allow pension fund to recover 106 thousand from a doctor

The Khadzhybey District Court of Odesa refused to satisfy the claim of the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Odesa Oblast against a pensioner demanding the return of UAH 106,000, which she believes she received by mistake.

As the judges noted in their decision, on September 30, 2024, the woman applied to the Pension Fund for an old-age pension and financial assistance. On September 26, 2024, she was granted an old-age pension of UAH 10,452, and in November it was recalculated and increased to UAH 10,608. At the same time, a one-time allowance of 10 monthly pensions was accrued and paid, which amounted to UAH 106,85.

However, the Pension Fund later decided that the woman was not entitled to a financial assistance payment of 10 monthly pensions because on the day she reached retirement age she worked as the head of the toxicology laboratory of the department of research on physical and chemical factors at the State Institution "Odesa Regional Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine", and the center was not included in the list of health care facilities compiled by the Ministry of Health in 2002. Thus, the fund decided that it had overpaid the woman and demanded a refund by going to court.

The judges took into account that the content of the letter from the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Odesa Oblast dated March 5, 2025, showed that when processing the application for her pension and one-time financial assistance, it was the Pension Fund specialists who incorrectly determined her special work experience, which indicates that there was no abuse on her part and no technical error in the granting of the pension.

The mechanism for the return of overpaid pension amounts provides for the recovery of these amounts only if such overpayment was due to the fault of the pensioner, namely, due to his or her abuse, so the claims of the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine were found to be unlawful.

Кирило Бойко