appendix d: summaries of selected cases
1-3. Guidance on sickness benefit during processing
of disability pension case
While processing an application for disability pension from a man who was
absent from work due to sickness, a local authority was informed that the applicant’s employer was located in Greenland, and that the applicant expected
to be dismissed after 120 days of absence due to sickness and did not expect to
return to the labour market. At that time the man was still receiving a salary,
and the payment of the salary continued until his employment ceased. As the
Greenland employer had not applied for refund of sickness benefit and as the
man had not applied for sickness benefit, no sickness benefit was paid when his
salary payments ceased.
The Employment Appeals Board upheld the local authority’s decision that the
man was not entitled to sickness benefit.
Due to the increased obligation to provide guidance in social matters, the Ombudsman found that the local authority ought to have guided the man on the
rules pertaining to sickness benefit.
Following a recommendation from the Ombudsman, the Employment Appeals
Board reopened the case and decided that the man should be put in a position
as if he had received correct guidance.
(Case No. 2010-2395-0050)
1-4. Proof that summons to meeting had reached
person on sickness benefit. Free legal aid
A local authority stopped payments of sickness benefit to a woman because she
had not attended an information meeting. The woman stated that she had never
received a summons to the meeting.
The local authority and the Employment Appeals Board assumed that the
summons had reached the woman, based on the facts that the letter had not
been returned to the local authority and that there were no reports from the
postal service of any irregularities in postal deliveries.
The Ombudsman stated, among other things, that the burden of proof that a
letter has reached the intended recipient rests with the administrative author-
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