【Description】
Reading and judging every day is a daily fixed study meeting of the Wancheng business team driven by both law and business. The case shared in this article is a case study that we collectively learned on October 9, 2024.
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[Summary of the trial]
1. The lawful rights and interests of disabled workers during the medical treatment period shall be protected in accordance with the law. If an employer illegally terminates a labor contract during the medical treatment period and has already paid compensation, and the employee claims sick leave pay and medical subsidies during the medical treatment period, the people's court shall support it.
2. Where the employer does not participate in the basic medical insurance for urban employees for the worker, and the worker participates in the new rural cooperative medical insurance on his own and claims that the employer make up the difference in reimbursement of medical expenses, the people's court shall support it.
【Related Laws】
Articles 42, 45, 47, 48 and 87 of the People's Republic of China Labor Contract Law
Article 23, paragraph 1, of the People's Republic of China Social Insurance Law
Article 1 of the Interpretation (III) of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Labor Dispute Cases
Article 24 of the Regulations of Guangdong Province on the Payment of Wages
[Basic facts of the case]
Mr. Yang joined a technology company on November 27, 2009 as a cleaner. The two parties did not sign a labor contract, and a technology company did not participate in social insurance for Yang, who participated in the new rural cooperative medical insurance in Nanyang City, Henan Province since January 2013. Yang's average monthly salary before his illness was 2,801.67 yuan/month. On June 29, 2015, Yang claimed that his lower limbs were paralyzed due to a knee disease, and he asked the technology company for leave until July 20 of the same year. Due to the need for hospitalization, on July 18, 2015, Yang sent a text message to the department head requesting to continue to ask for leave, and the technology company confirmed that it had received the text message, and on July 24 of the same year, it terminated the employment relationship on the grounds that Yang had "left himself". From July 8, 2015 to February 16, 2016, Yang was treated in Dongguan People's Hospital and other medical institutions, resulting in a total of 65,632.08 yuan in medical expenses. The parties confirmed that Yang had been at work until June 28, 2015.
Mr. Yang had applied to an arbitration tribunal of a municipal labor and personnel dispute arbitration court for labor arbitration. Arbitral award: confirming that the employment relationship between the parties has been terminated; A technology company paid Yang 33,620.04 yuan in compensation for illegally terminating labor relations and 1,047 yuan in sick leave pay from June 29, 2015 to July 24, 2015, and rejected Yang's other requests.
Mr. Yang sued the court, requesting that a technology company pay Mr. Yang 39,223.38 yuan in compensation for illegal termination of labor relations, 30,908.37 yuan in sick leave pay for the period from June 29, 2015 to May 30, 2016, no less than 25,215.03 yuan in medical subsidies for nine months and medical expenses.
[The court held that]
The effective judgment of the court held that, based on the procuratorial organ's protest opinion and the parties' defense opinions, the main disputes in the retrial were: 1. whether Yang's claim for sick leave pay for the remaining medical treatment period after July 24, 2015 should be supported; 2. Whether Yang's claim for medical subsidies should be supported; 3. Whether the difference in medical insurance reimbursement asserted by Yang should be supported.
1. On the issue of whether Yang's claim for sick leave pay for the remaining medical treatment period after July 24, 2015 should be supported. The Labor Contract Law does not specify whether the employer is required to pay sick leave pay after paying compensation for illegal termination of labor relationship.
First of all, sick leave pay is a protective payment for employees, and the compensation for illegal termination of the labor contract is a punitive legal liability. Secondly, in accordance with Article 45 of the Labor Contract Law and Article 24, Paragraph 1 of the Regulations of Guangdong Province on the Payment of Wages, sick leave pay is the salary that the employee should receive, and the employer shall pay the sick leave pay to the employee during the medical treatment period. According to Article 3 of the Regulations on the Medical Treatment Period for Employees of Enterprises Injured Due to Illness or Non-work-related Injuries, Yang enjoyed a nine-month medical treatment period, and the retrial changed the judgment to pay Yang a sick leave salary of 10,872 yuan for a total of nine months of medical treatment from June 29, 2015 to March 28, 2016.
2. On the issue of whether Yang's claim for medical subsidies should be supported. The Labor Contract Law does not have relevant provisions on medical subsidies, which are a social responsibility and statutory responsibility given to employers to ensure that employees continue to treat diseases. In judicial practice, the application of medical subsidies is mainly when the labor contract is terminated or when the labor contract is terminated. According to the existing regulations on the application of medical subsidies, an employer is still required to pay medical subsidies when the employment relationship is terminated without fault and the employment contract is terminated upon expiration. Moreover, the nature and function of compensation and Medicaid are different, and the existing legal provisions do not specify that compensation can cover Medicaid expenses. Combined with the specific circumstances of Yang's illness and the judicial appraisal opinion of most of the loss of working capacity, the retrial judgment was changed to determine that a technology company should pay Yang a medical subsidy equivalent to six months' salary.
3. On the issue of whether the difference in medical insurance reimbursement advocated by Yang should be supported. In accordance with the first paragraph of Article 23 of the Social Insurance Law, the employer and the employee must participate in medical insurance and pay medical insurance premiums in accordance with the law, otherwise the employer shall compensate the employee for the losses suffered by the employee due to the failure to go through the social insurance formalities for him/her and the failure of the social insurance agency to make up for it. The difference in reimbursement between the basic medical insurance for employees in Dongguan City and the new rural cooperative medical insurance already enjoyed by Yang was a loss suffered by a technology company because it did not go through social insurance procedures for him, and the retrial was supported. After an investigation with the Social Insurance Fund Management Center of a city in Guangdong Province and accounting by the center, the retrial ruled that a technology company made up the difference between the two types of medical insurance reimbursement to Yang by 9,954.77 yuan.
【Referee Process】
On December 21, 2016, the Second People's Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, rendered the (2016) Yue 1972 Min Chu [] Civil Judgment: 1. Confirm that the employment relationship between Yang and a technology company has been terminated; …… 4. A technology company is limited to pay Yang 33,620.04 yuan in compensation for illegal termination of labor relations within five days of the judgment taking legal effect; 5. A technology company is limited to pay Yang 1,047 yuan in sick leave pay for the period from June 29, 2015 to July 24, 2015 within five days of the judgment taking legal effect; 6. Rejecting Yang's other litigation claims. Yang was dissatisfied with the first-instance judgment and appealed.
On January 4, 2018, the Intermediate People's Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, rendered the (2017) Yue 19 Min Zhong [] Civil Judgment: rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment. After the second-instance judgment took effect, Mr. Yang appealed to the procuratorate, and the Guangdong Provincial People's Procuratorate filed a protest with the Guangdong High People's Court on the grounds that Yang's claim for sick leave pay and medical subsidies during the medical period should be supported, and that the final judgment erred in the application of law.
The High People's Court of Guangdong Province brought the case to trial and rendered the (2020) Yue Min Zai [] Civil Judgment on May 10, 2021: 1. Revoke the (2017) Yue 19 Min Zhong [] Civil Judgment of the Intermediate People's Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province and Item 6 of the (2016) Yue 1972 Min Chu [] Civil Judgment of the Second People's Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province; 2. Items 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the (2016) Yue 1972 Min Chu [] Civil Judgment of the Second People's Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province are upheld; 3. Item 5 of the (2016) Yue 1972 Min Chu [] Civil Judgment of the Second People's Court of Dongguan City, Guangdong Province is modified as follows: a technology company is limited to paying Yang 10,872 yuan in sick leave wages for the period from June 29, 2015 to March 28, 2016 within five days from the date of this judgment taking legal effect; 4. A certain technology company is limited to pay Yang a medical subsidy of 16,810.02 yuan and an appraisal fee of 2,212 yuan within five days of the date on which this judgment takes legal effect; 5. A certain technology company is limited to pay Yang a medical fee and reimburse the difference loss of 9,954.77 yuan within five days of the date on which this judgment takes legal effect; 6. Reject Yang's other litigation claims.
