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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Benefits - From: 1980 To: 1984

This page lists 17 cases, and was prepared on 03 April 2018.


 
 R(P) 2/80; 1980 - 1980 Volume of National Insurance Commissioner Decisions

 
 Walsh v National Insurance Officer; ECJ 22-May-1980 - C-143/79; R-143/79; [1980] EUECJ R-143/79
 
Alastair Menzies v Bundesversicherungsanstalt fur Angestellte C-793/79
26 Jun 1980
ECJ

European, Benefits
Europa Social security for migrant workers - invalidity insurance - calculation of benefits - application by analogy with provisions on insurance for old age and death - calculation of the theoretical and actual amount - supplementary period ('zurechnungszeit') - inclusion in the calculation of the theoretical amount - exclusion in the calculation of the actual amount (regulation no 1408/71 of the council, art. 46 (2) (a) and (b)). Although the calculation to be carried out under article 46 (2) (a) of regulation no 1408/71 is intended to give a worker the maximum theoretical amount which he could claim if all periods of insurance had been completed in the state in question, the purpose of the calculation under article 46 (2) (b) is solely to apportion the respective burdens of the benefit between the institutions of the member states concerned in the ratio of the length of the periods of insurance completed in each of the said member states before the risk materialized. It follows that if, in order to evaluate the benefit awarded in the event of premature invalidity or death of the insured person, the legislation of a member state provides that the benefit must be calculated in relation to not only periods of insurance completed by the insured person but also in relation to a supplementary period ('zurechnungszeit') equivalent to the interval of the time between the age of the insured person at the time at which the risk materialized and the time at which he reached the age of 55, that supplementary period must also be taken into account in the calculation of the theoretical amount referred to in article 46 (2) (a) but not in the calculation of the actual amount referred to in article 46 (2) (b) of regulation no 1408/71.

 
Regina v Stanislaus Pieck R-157/79; [1980] EUECJ R-157/79; [1981] Q.B. 571
3 Jul 1980
ECJ

European, Benefits
Any formality for the purpose of granting leave, coupled with a passport or an identity card check at the frontier, was contrary to article 3(2) of Directive 68/360 E.E.C. which prohibited Member States from demanding an entry visa or equivalent requirement from community workers. It was further held that a general resident's permit could not be required since the right to enter and reside in the territory of another Member State for the purposes intended by the Treaty is a right conferred directly by the Treaty.
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]

 
 Regina v Chief National Insurance Commissioner Ex Parte Connor; QBD 1981 - [1981] 1 QB 758; [1981] 1 All ER 769

 
 Regina v National Insurance Commissioner, Ex parte Secretary of State for Social Services; In re Packer; CA 1981 - [1981] 1 WLR 1017
 
Crake v Supplementary Benefits Commission; Butterworth v Supplementary Benefits Commission [1982] 1 All ER 498
1982

Woolf J
Benefits
The claimants lived in the same house. The woman had severe injuries, and her male friend had at one time moved into the house to assist her care. She later moved to live with him, leaving her husband. There was no sexual relationship. The commissioner treated them as living together as husband and wife. They appealed. Held: The absence of reasons in the decision did not necessarily constitute an error of law. In the absence of otrher explanations, the fact that a man and a woman lived in the same house was strong evidence that they lived together as husband and wife. Here the tribunal had addressed the correct issues, and had evidence upon which the finding was based.
Supplementary Benefits Act 1976 Sch 1 para 3(1)(b)
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
JW and EW v United Kingdom 9776/82
1982
ECHR

Human Rights, Benefits
The Commission considered a complaint that the UK government’s failure to pay an uprated pension infringed the pensioner’s Convention rights. The applicants were emigrating to Australia. The Commission rejected the complaint as inadmissible, saying "The Commission has considered the applicants’ complaint under Article 1 of the Protocol. It first recalls that it has previously held that although this provision does not as such guarantee a right to a pension, the right to benefit from a social security system to which a person has contributed may in some circumstances be a property right protected by it. However the Commission also held that Article 1 does not guarantee a right to a pension of any particular amount, but that the right safeguarded by Article 1 consists, at most, "in being entitled as a beneficiary of the social insurance scheme to any payments made by the fund" (App. No. 5849/72, Müller v. Austria, D.R 3, p.25 at p. 31). It has further held that before the right to benefit protected by Article 1 can be established, it is necessary that the interested party should have satisfied domestic legal requirements governing the right (App. No. 7459/76, X. v. Italy, D.R. 11, p. 114). In the present case when the applicants emigrate to Australia their entitlement to benefit from the United Kingdom pension scheme will come to be regulated by different rules of domestic law, under which they will cease to qualify for payment of future pension increases contemplated by the relevant legislation. To that extent they will not satisfy domestic legal requirements to benefit from the United Kingdom pension scheme. Even if the right to benefit from a scheme will normally also apply to the regular increases this is not necessarily the case where a person leaves the country where the specific scheme operates. The Commission notes that in many countries specific restrictions as to the payment of social security benefits to foreign countries exist or have existed… In the Commission’s view such operation of domestic law does not amount to a deprivation of possessions infringing Article 1 of the Protocol and there is thus no appearance of any breach of this provision."
1 Citers


 
Bland v Chief Supplementary Benefit Officer [1982] UKSSCSC RSB_12_1983; [1983] 1 WLR 262
1 Dec 1982
SSCS
Sir John Donaldson MR
Benefits
Application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal against a ruling of the Social Security Commissioner. The tibunal was asked if the Court of Appeal any jurisdiction to give leave to appeal from the refusal of a Social Security Commissioner to give leave to appeal to her from a decision of the supplementary benefit appeal tribunal?
Sir John Donaldson MR said: "I would accept that in a sense the grant or refusal of leave to appeal to the Commissioner is a decision, just as in Ex parte Stevenson [1982] 1 QB, 609 it was accepted that the grant or refusal of leave to appeal was an order of the High Court, but it is not the kind of decision which, in my judgment, s.14 contemplate."
Social Security Act 1980 14
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Coupland v Arabian Gulf Oil Co [1983] 1 WLR 1136
1983
QBD
Hodgson J
Benefits, International, Damages
The plaintiff employee, injured whilst working for the defendant in Libya, sued in contract and tort. The judge held that Libyan law was the proper law of the contract, but that this was of no relevance to the claim in tort which could proceed here if the plaintiff could satisfy the double actionability rule. The defendant argued that the English double actionability rule should not be applied because there was a Libyan contract.
Hodgson J said: "It is clear that the ordinary rule in tort is that the law of the place where the action is being brought - the lex fori – is the law to be applied. To find an exception to that rule one has to find as issue, which is decided differently by the two jurisprudences, which is capable of being segregated and which can then be decided by an application of what, in effect by the back door, is the proper law of that issue. But before one can do that one has to have some substantial difference between the two systems of law. In this case (as I have demonstrated) the only possible candidate for segregation would be the rule in Libyan law that social security benefits are not deductible from an award of general damages. But that contention is not advanced by Mr Hartley Booth for the plaintiff (and properly so it seems to me), for that rule is, in my judgment, a rule for the quantification of damage and not a rule dealing with a head of damage. And if it is a rule dealing with the quantification of damage, then it is for the law of this country to prevail.”
1 Citers



 
 Bland v Chief Supplementary Benefit Officer; CA 1983 - [1983] 1 WLR 262

 
 NA v Department for Social Development (Rp) (Retirement Pension ); NISSCS 7-Jan-1983 - [1983] NICom 01
 
Raad Van Arbeid v Mme Van Der Bunt Craig R-238/81; [1983] EUECJ R-238/81
5 May 1983
ECJ

European, Benefits
ECJ Irrespective of the characteristics peculiar to the various national laws, social security benefits must be considered to be of the same kind when their purpose and basis of calculation are the same. In that respect, benefits acquired under the legislation of two member states, which seeks to ensure that an aged person deprived of the income of his or her deceased spouse has sufficient means of subsistence, and the respective amounts of which are determined on the basis of the insurance and social security contributions of that spouse, must be considered to be benefits of the same kind by reason of their identical purpose and basis of calculation.
When a worker receives a pension pursuant to national legislation alone, the provisions of regulation no 1408/71 do not prevent that legislation from being applied to him in its entirety, including the national rules against overlapping benefits. If, however, the application of that national legislation is less favourable to the worker than the application of article 46 of regulation no 1408/71, the provisions of that article must be applied. On the latter supposition, paragraph (3) of article 46 is applicable to the exclusion of rules against overlapping laid down by national legislation.
Where benefits of the same kind are granted or awarded in different member states on the basis of analogous national rules, without any reference to the provisions of regulation no 1408/71, there are no grounds for applying the method of currency conversion set out in article 107 of regulation no 574/72.
No provision of community law requires the periodical recalculation, by reason of a variation in the rates of conversion of currencies, of a social security benefit whose amount has been established in another member state.
[ Bailii ]
 
In re Woodling; Woodling v Secretary of State for Social Services [1984] 1 WLR 348; [1984] 1 All ER 593
1984
HL
Lord Bridge of Harwich
Benefits
The question of law was whether cooking meals was "attention in connection with bodily functions" for the purpose of attendance allowance. Held: Though courts are willing to give "bodily functions" a fairly wide meaning, it did not include the performance of domestic tasks like cooking. The service in question must be directed primarily to those bodily functions of the dependent person "which the fit person normally performs for himself."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Salvatore Cinciuolo v Union Nationale Des Federations Mutualistes Neutres And Institut National D'Assurance Maladie-Invalidite R-104/83; [1984] EUECJ R-104/83
1 Mar 1984
ECJ

European, Benefits
ECJ Social security for migrant workers - old-age and survivors' insurance - benefits - adjustment - recalculation - scope of the system
(Regulation no 1408/71 of the council, art. 51)
Article 51 of regulation no 1408/71 must be interpreted as applying to benefits such as those in respect of accidents at work or occupational disease which, by virtue of the national rules against overlapping of benefits, originally affected the amount of the pension fixed pursuant to article 46 and any subsequent adjustments to which might again affect that pension. It is therefore not necessary to recalculate the pension pursuant to article 46 if an adjustment is made to such a benefit on account of the general evolution of the economic and social situation.
[ Bailii ]
 
Nv Tiel-Utrecht Schadeverzekering v Gemeenschappelijk Motorwaarborgfonds R-313/82; [1984] EUECJ R-313/82
15 Mar 1984
ECJ

Benefits
1. Social security for migrant workers - rights of institutions responsible for benefits against liable third parties - institution - meaning - (regulation no 1408/71 of the council, art. 1(n) and art. 93)
2. Social security for migrant workers - community regulations - matters covered - 'industrial agreements' - exclusion (regulation no 1408/71 of the council, art. 1(j))

1. The term 'institution' in article 93 of regulation no 1408/71 means, in respect of each member state, the body or authority responsible for administering all or part of the member state's legislation relating to the branches or schemes of social security mentioned in that regulation.
2. Regulation no 1408/71 does not apply to 'industrial agreements' (dispositions conventionnelles). Therefore the relationship existing between an insured person and an insurance company under insurance having a purely contractual basis does not, by reason of its nature, fall within the scope of regulation no 1408/71.
[ Bailii ]
 
Pakvries Bv v Minister Van Landbouw En Visserij R-105/83; [1984] EUECJ R-105/83
16 May 1984
ECJ

Benefits
Community transit - Benelux arrangements.
[ Bailii ]
 
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