The Regional Government of Andalusia has been ordered to pay more than €55,300 in compensation to a pensioner who, between 2018 and 2022, was deprived of any source of income due to an error in the processing of his early retirement. During that period, the affected person was unable to access either his retirement pension or the 78% of his salary to which he was entitled under a previous agreement. The case reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the compensation and exonerated the worker from all liability.
The first favourable ruling was handed down by Social Court No. 3 of Huelva, which held the Junta de Andalucía responsible for the administrative error. The judge pointed out that ‘the worker should not pay the consequences of administrative errors in determining his retirement age’ and stressed that the administration had an obligation to guarantee the agreed income until the person concerned reached his normal retirement age, regardless of whether he had applied for early retirement.
The facts date back to 1981, when the worker began his professional life. In 2003, he was included in an employment regulation process (ERE), which gave him access to a temporary income equivalent to 78% of his salary, financed by a collective insurance policy taken out between the State and the Regional Government. This financial support was to be maintained until he reached the legal retirement age. However, in 2018, when he tried to take advantage of early retirement, the National Social Security Institute (INSS) rejected his application after mistakenly calculating that he still had 1,400 days to go to meet the requirements. This decision left him without a pension and without the income guaranteed by the previous agreement.
It was then determined that the error stemmed from a miscalculation of his retirement age communicated by the INSS, which the Andalusian Regional Government accepted without verification. During the four years without income, the pensioner was forced to depend financially on those around him to survive. According to labour law experts, this is not an isolated case, as there are other workers who have had to go to court to get Social Security to recognise its mistakes.