A director of a Russian company died. His wife applied to the company for the compensation due in such an event: the salary received by her husband on the day of his death and material assistance for the funeral. But the accounting department denied her request arguing that the deceased director owed the company almost a million rubles. This is how the case reached the Supreme Court.

Why did the highest court side with the widow? How is this case useful for Russians? And what lawyer Elena Gladysheva thinks about it, you can learn from the publication for the Firm's Secret magazine and in more detail from our post:

HOW IS THE CASE NOTEWORTHY FOR RUSSIANS? HOW CAN IT INFLUENCE THE PRACTICE?

Elena Gladysheva: "Currently in the Russian Federation there are a large number of legal precedents related to refusal of employers to pay compensation to relatives of deceased employees and payments not received by deceased employees on the date of death, as well as refusals to pay to citizens the relevant compensation. In most cases, when Russians apply to the courts for the recovery of payments due by family members from employers of deceased employees, the courts incorrectly apply legal norms related to inheritance issues instead of the labor law norms that should be applied.

The court practice that has emerged in this case will help in the future, when citizens file similar claims against employers, to avoid the incorrect application by the courts of first and appellate instance of the norms of inheritance law, in circumvention of the labor legislation. The higher court also noted once again that the right to receive amounts payable to the testator that he did not receive during his lifetime for any reason whatsoever in the form of wages and similar payments belongs to members of his family or dependents who were on his support, regardless of whether they lived together or not. The application of the rules of inheritance law is allowed only if the corresponding application for payment was not received by the employer of the deceased, or in the absence of persons entitled to receive appropriate payments and this is precisely and clearly described in the Decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, and which was not previously noted by the courts of lower instances. At the same time the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation indicates the need to apply special norms of (labor) law in conjunction with the application of family law with the determination of persons who are the family of the testator, and also informs that only after applying the relevant special norms of family and labor law, the courts should take into account the rules on inclusion of unreceived amounts in the estate, in accordance with the Civil Code of the Russian Federation."

HOW DO YOU ASSESS THE RULING OF THE SUPREME COURT AND THE ARGUMENTS OF THE HIGHER COURT?

Elena Gladysheva: "In the Ruling of the Judicial Board for Civil Cases of the RF Supreme Court and the arguments set forth in it, the Supreme Court protected the interests of the weaker party - the spouse of the testator, who, in turn, was actually deprived of her source of livelihood - the salary of her dead husband. The Supreme Court drew attention to the fact that the deceased, together with his wife, bore the burden of maintaining the common household of the spouses (the cost of maintaining the house in which the spouses lived), and also drew attention to the significant errors of the lower courts in terms of not applying the provisions of special law (the rules of labor and family law).

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation exhaustively and in detail describes the violations committed by the lower courts. This Ruling of the Supreme Court describes what the trial and appellate courts did not pay attention to and what circumstances were not given an appropriate legal assessment by the cassation court. As a result of the violations committed and referred to in the Decision, the courts issued illegal judicial acts that were not based on any evidence, which violated the rights of the plaintiff, the wife of the deceased, who had applied for payment of the money owed her in accordance with Russian law in connection with the death of her husband, in payment of which she had been denied by her employer.

Thus, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation once again confirmed the well-established judicial practice of the inadmissibility of courts rendering decisions bypassing a comprehensive study of the evidence presented in the case file during the consideration of disputes. It was also noted by the RF Supreme Court that the courts of first and appellate instances based their judicial acts on an incorrect interpretation of the law and failure to apply special norms of labor and family law, which have undeniable priority in regulating labor relations on issues of compensation and payments to family members that were not received by a deceased employee.

Also, the Judicial Board for Civil Cases of the RF Supreme Court exhaustively described the inadmissibility of judicial acts of the courts, without reflecting the motives on which the arguments of the plaintiff or the defendant were accepted by the courts as a basis for the findings of the court and are laid in its decision, or in the absence of description in judicial acts of evidence presented by the parties in support of their positions," – the attorney notes.

YOU CAN READ THE OPINION OF THE EXPERT AND OTHER LAWYERS IN THE PUBLICATION:

https://secretmag.ru/survival/vdova.htm