Facts
A. worked as a road worker for the Municipality of X. From October 14, 2002, he presented a total and permanent incapacity to work. On the following December 12, he filed a claim for a disability pension. The Municipality of X. filled out the usual questionnaire for the employer and checked that it was paying advances to the insured and wished to receive a form for the payment of retroactive pension payments.
By decision of January 20, 2004, the Disability Insurance Office for the Canton of Vaud (the AI Office) granted the insured a full pension from February 1, 2004. On March 31, 2004, it set the amount of benefits for the period from July 2002 to January 2004, paying the pension arrears directly to the insured.
On May 24, 2004, the Municipality of X. wrote to the Vaud Cantonal Compensation Fund that it had paid advances to the insured and requested that a form for obtaining the retroactive payments be sent to it. The AI Office then sent a compensation claim form to the insured, but he refused to sign it.
The Municipality of X. then requested the AI Office to reimburse it directly for the advances it had made. The AI Office rejected this request based on Art. 78 ATSG.
Considerations
According to the Federal Court, the failure of the AI Office to transmit the special form for reimbursement request to the Municipality of X. constitutes an unlawful act, despite the absence of an express legal provision on this matter. Indeed, Art. 85bis RAI provides that employers who have made advances can demand the payment of pension arrears in compensation, using a special form. Although the law does not formally sanction the failure to send this form, this omission must be equated with the non-performance of a properly submitted reimbursement request.
Furthermore, the Federal Court considers that…