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The Zurich Social Insurance Court agrees with iclaims.ch: Disability insurance must reassess pension entitlements.
According to the considerations of the Zurich Social Insurance Court, the Zurich Social Insurance Institution wrongly relied exclusively on an orthopedic report obtained from a daily sickness allowance insurance company. Due to various shortcomings, this raised doubts as to the conclusiveness and reliability of the full ability to work of the insured persons represented by iclaims.ch, as certified by the expert. Because several treating doctors and a rehabilitation clinic had come to different conclusions. There were therefore concrete indications of the lack of probative value of the daily sickness benefit report. This was all the more the case as the Zurich Social Insurance Institution had not clarified the extent to which the person concerned was gainfully employed and how she worked in her own household and how exactly she was restricted in each of the two activities.
The Zurich Social Security Court issued a separate judgment on the same day in favor of the mandatory accident insurance that was also involved. However, iclaims.ch has filed an appeal against this with the Federal Supreme Court, since it is unacceptable that a social insurance company is legally obliged to clarify the existence of disability while another is simultaneously relieved of the corresponding clarifications. All the more so if the health complaints are obviously related to an insured accident. The decision of the federal court is pending.
Link to Judgment IV.2021.00312 of June 24, 2022: https://chid003d.ideso.ch/c050018/svg/findexweb.nsf/ judgement.xsp?uid=142bd50c-095f-4aeb-8e7d-38240cfaddab
Bülach District Court recognises claim for abusive dismissal as a result of whistleblowing.
In its decision of 14 December 2021, the Bülach District Court upheld the claim of an insurance employee dismissed for whistleblowing and awarded him three months' wages for unfair dismissal.
The unfairly dismissed plaintiff succeeded in proving that there was a direct causal link between his bona fide SpeakUp report on the company's designated internal channels and the dismissal pronounced immediately after the conclusion of the company's internal whistleblowing procedure. The court did not believe the insurance company's assertions that the termination was due to alleged "difficult behaviour" on the part of the plaintiff, for which the defendant was unable to provide any evidence. Rather, based on the defendant's claim that it had waited until the conclusion of the internal investigation, the court concluded that there was a direct link between the whistleblowing report and the termination, as the defendant would obviously not have terminated the employment if the report had been assessed as accurate by the internal compliance unit and had led to measures being taken.
The plaintiff is the current owner of iclaims.ch. The ruling shows that also in the canton of Zurich and in Switzerland in general, employees are protected from dismissal if they report irregularities in good faith on channels set up by the employer. The employer has to tolerate such reports within the framework of his duty of care and also on the basis of the constitutional freedom of expression and is not entitled to issue a dismissal immediately after the conclusion of an internal company investigation. If he nevertheless does so, the causal link between the whistleblowing report and the dismissal is given if the employee succeeds in showing this causal link.
However, Swiss labour law provides for a maximum compensation of six months' salary for abusive dismissals - apart from the plaintiff having to prove that the dismissal was abusive, which is a high hurdle in itself. However, the much higher damage caused to the employees concerned and to the unemployment insurance is often not compensated by far if they do not find an equally well-paid job very quickly, which is practically impossible, especially in the case of older employees as in the present case. Nevertheless, the Swiss Code of Obligations leaves open the possibility of claiming additional damages under other legal titles. This should be the case here, as the plaintiff has demonstrably suffered damages of several hundred thousand Swiss francs due to the violation of employment contract provisions together with the unemployment insurance. On the one hand, this was because there was (partial) unemployment for almost two and a half years and, on the other hand, because the wages earned were more than a third lower than before the dismissal.
EU works on safer vehicles for safer citizens:
The EU introduces a new regulation imposing enhanced safety standards for car manufacturers in order to significantly reduce the number of road casualties and injuries. Member states' ambassadors meeting in the Council's Permanent Representatives Committee today approved the provisional deal reached between the Romanian presidency and the European Parliament on a draft regulation on the general safety of motor vehicles and the protection of vehicle occupants and vulnerable road users.
According to Niculae Bădălău, Romanian Minister for economy, this new regulation will contribute to the objective of significantly reducing the number of fatalities and severe injuries on EU roads through the measures for the protection of vehicle occupants and vulnerable road users. Starting from 2022, new technologies and systems will become mandatory for new vehicles of different types. The new regulation will also provide an opportunity for EU car manufacturers to consolidate their leadership on innovative vehicle safety systems.
Don't miss: beautiful Road Movie from Argentina - free of charge in YouTube. Something for the next weekend at home or in your holiday home:
film review with trailer:
http://derarbeitsmarkt.ch/de/kritik/camino-la-paz
