Determination of the Insured Earnings of Disabled Persons

Facts

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs has appealed against a decision of the Insurance Court of the Canton of St. Gallen concerning the reimbursement of unemployment insurance benefits paid to G. The essential facts are as follows: - G. was retroactively awarded a half disability pension from 1 October 2001 to 30 April 2002, and then a full disability pension from 1 May 2002 onwards. - This constitutes an important new fact of which the unemployment insurance was not aware, which allows the daily allowances paid from 1 October 2001 to 27 June 2002 to be reclaimed. - The dispute concerns the extent of the reimbursement obligation.

Considerations

According to the DFC, Art. 40b of the Unemployment Insurance Ordinance (UIO) does not provide a clear answer on the method of calculating the insured earnings of disabled persons. Both the interpretation of the appellant authority and that of the cantonal court are compatible with the objective of the norm, which is to avoid overcompensation by the accumulation of a disability pension and unemployment benefits.

However, the administrative practice and the consistent case law of the DFC over many years consider that the actual salary earned by the person before the reduction of their earning capacity must be taken into account, multiplied by the factor resulting from the difference between…