The subject matter of this dispute is the claim of a former rescuer for the recovery of average earnings from the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service in Khmelnytskyi Oblast for the entire period of delay in settlement upon dismissal for the period from September 2018 to July 2024.
The Supreme Court noted that the disputed period of delay spans two different versions of Article 117 of the Labor Code of Ukraine, as since July 19, 2022, the legislator has limited the payment of such average earnings to a maximum of six months. The lower courts erred by applying this six-month limitation to the entire period of delay and failing to calculate the compensation at all for the period prior to the entry into force of the legislative amendments. **:** In this resolution, the panel of judges relied on the current position of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, which departed from the previous conclusion of the Supreme Court and clarified that the new six-month limitation does not negate the principles of reasonableness, fairness, and proportionality, and therefore the court can still reduce the amount of compensation taking into account the specific circumstances. The Court emphasized that to determine a fair amount of payment, the courts should have applied a special proportionality formula based on the ratio of the unpaid amount to the total amount of funds due upon dismissal. Furthermore, the lower courts failed to properly establish all the factual circumstances of the case, in particular, regarding the amounts of average earnings already paid to the plaintiff under other court decisions for the same period.
Consequently, the Supreme Court granted the cassation appeal of the plaintiff, reversed the decisions of the courts of first and appellate instances, and remanded the case for a new trial to the Khmelnytskyi District Administrative Court.
