A woman was forced to return 28 thousand UAH of unemployment benefits due to a pension she won in court: how the dispute ended

The Dnipro Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the first instance court, which had obliged the woman to return more than 28 thousand hryvnias of unemployment benefits after she was assigned a pension retroactively by court decision. The appellate court concluded that the mere fact of retroactive pension assignment is not sufficient grounds for recovering previously paid benefits if the authority demanding the return of funds has not proven the bad faith of the person or the existence of a calculation error.

Circumstances of the case

In April 2025, the Kostiantynivka City Employment Center filed a lawsuit to recover 28,217 UAH of unemployment benefits from a citizen.

The plaintiff stated that the woman was registered as unemployed and received benefits from May 17 to November 27, 2022. At the same time, after the decision of the Donetsk District Administrative Court was executed, the Pension Fund assigned her a pension retroactively from May 11, 2022. Due to the overlap of the pension and unemployment benefit periods, the employment center considered that the paid funds should be returned.

What the district court decided

The Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Dnipro satisfied the employment center's claim.

The first instance court reasoned that the defendant had no legal grounds to acquire the status of unemployed and receive unemployment benefits since she was later assigned a pension for the period covering the time she received those payments.

Arguments of the appeal

In appealing the decision, the woman emphasized that at the time of applying to the employment center in May 2022, she was not receiving a pension and had not even applied for one.

According to her, she submitted an application to the Pension Fund only in September 2023—almost nine months after the unemployment benefits ended. After receiving a refusal, she appealed to the administrative court and only in 2024 succeeded in obtaining the pension assignment.

She also pointed out that the employment center did not refer to any calculation error during the payment of benefits and did not provide evidence of any unlawful actions on her part when obtaining the unemployed status or receiving payments.

Position of the appellate court

The panel of judges noted that the decisive issue in the dispute is the presence or absence of bad faith on the part of the person who received unemployment benefits.

The court referred to Article 1215 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, according to which pensions, benefits, and other social payments provided as a means of subsistence are not subject to return if they were paid voluntarily, without calculation errors or bad faith of the recipient.

The appellate court also cited legal conclusions of the Supreme Court and the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, according to which the good faith of the social benefits recipient is presumed, and the burden of proving the opposite lies with the authority demanding the return of funds.

Why the court refused to recover the funds

The court established that the woman applied for a pension only in September 2023, i.e., after the period of receiving unemployment benefits had ended.

The panel concluded that the case materials 932/11492/25 contain no evidence that when applying to the employment center in May 2022, she knew about her pension rights or deliberately concealed such information.

The appellate court noted that after the pension was assigned retroactively from May 11, 2022, an overlap of pension and unemployment benefit periods occurred. However, this fact alone does not create grounds for returning already paid funds.

At the same time, the employment center did not prove either the defendant's bad faith or that the benefit payment was due to a calculation error. Under these circumstances, the court found no grounds to apply exceptions provided by Article 1215 of the Civil Code of Ukraine.

Conclusions of the court

The Dnipro Court of Appeal concluded that the plaintiff did not refute the presumption of good faith of the benefit recipient and did not prove circumstances allowing recovery of the social payments from her.

As a result, the appeal was granted, the decision of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Dnipro was overturned, and the claim of the Kostiantynivka City Employment Center to recover 28,217 UAH of unemployment benefits was denied. The ruling came into legal force on the day of its adoption and may be appealed in cassation.

Subscribe to our Telegram channel t.me/sudua and to Google News SUD.UA, as well as our VIBER and WhatsApp, Facebook page and Instagram to stay informed about the most important events.