ZUS auditors forced themselves into a closed office. The company withdrew the benefit and lost miserably
ZUS inspectors posing as customers entered the company’s headquarters, where the entrepreneur was on sick leave. She refused to serve them, asked them to leave the premises, but the inspectors reported her for misusing her sick leave anyway. ZUS took away her sickness benefit and then lost the case in court.
In the first half of the year, ZUS conducted 260.8 thousand inspections regarding the correct use of sick leave. In 18.6 thousand cases, it found irregularities and issued a decision suspending further payment of sickness benefits. In this way, the institution saved PLN 23.9 million, almost PLN 117.5 million (this is the total amount of reduced and withdrawn cash benefits from social insurance). This was established by the daily “Fakt” after reviewing the inspection report.
Refusal to serve is not enough
People who believe that the withdrawal was unjustified may appeal to the court. It assesses whether ZUS had the right to stop the payment of the benefit and oblige the insured person to return the amount already paid. The court’s task is to assess whether the officials were right to accuse the insured person of improper use of sick leave.
It is worth fighting for your rights, because courts often side with the insured and argue that officials were overzealous – or simply unfair.
This was the case from Toruń, described by “Gazeta Pomorska”. ZUS inspectors visited the headquarters of a company whose owner was on sick leave. The headquarters was located in a room adjacent to the house where the woman lives.
The secret service officials did not notice that there was a sign on the door saying that the office was closed. They entered despite requests to leave and, pretending to be customers, demanded to be served. The owner refused, but the fact that they saw a woman on sick leave sitting at a laptop in the place where she usually serves customers was enough for the inspectors to triumph.
ZUS lost in court
They described the circumstances of the case, as a result of which the Company took away the woman’s entire sickness benefit. It was a painful loss, because after a shoulder injury she went on sick leave for over three months. She appealed to the court and explained that she had not performed her official duties, and had only entered the company account to check whether the transfer to the tax office had been sent correctly.
The Toruń labor court found that the woman had not broken the rules for the proper use of sick leave. “The insured person usually performed operations on the account and the statement of receivables on Saturday. These were not incriminating activities: they lasted several minutes,” the court emphasized.
The entrepreneur regained the right to sickness benefit. ZUS is also to reimburse the costs of court proceedings along with statutory interest.
