Facts
The insured, born in 1932 and of Italian origin, suffered a traffic accident on October 24, 1981, with injuries that required an 8-day hospitalization. On April 15, 1982, he had another accident when he slipped on the stairs and sprained his left thumb. The Swiss Accident Insurance Fund (SUVA) acknowledged its obligation to compensate for both incidents and paid the statutory benefits, assuming a 50% work capacity as of June 1, 1982.
The insured has worked part-time since June 1, 1982, and only achieved 50% of the expected performance even at this workload. Several medical examinations found a 100% work capacity, although a persistent minor residual damage to the peroneal nerve could not be excluded. Based on an assumed degree of disability of 10%, SUVA granted the insured a disability pension in its decision of November 25, 1982.
The insured then requested that he be granted a disability pension corresponding to the actual degree of disability and a lump-sum settlement. The Insurance Court of the Canton of Basel-City partially upheld the appeal and remanded the case to SUVA for a new decision. Based on an expert opinion from the Psychiatric University Outpatient Clinic, it found that since the accident of October 24, 1981, there has been a complete and, for a long time, exclusively psychologically-induced incapacity to work, which is attributable to that accident by half.
Considerations
SUVA filed an administrative court appeal and requested that the lower court's decision be overturned insofar as the insured was awarded a 50% disability pension for the psychologically-induced incapacity to work.
The Federal Court ruled that in affirming the adequate causal link between an accident event and mental disorders, it should not be based on how a normally constituted insured would have reacted to the accident. Rather, it must be taken into account that the Accident Insurance Act also protects persons…