Employment Record Book Errors Are Not Grounds for Excluding Employment Periods

Pension provision issues require careful attention and a detailed approach. One of the most common issues is determining which periods of a person’s employment should be included in the qualifying period for pension purposes. However, determining the length of service may sometimes become complicated due to errors, deficiencies, or missing information in employment documents. A similar situation arose in the case of Pavlo Frankovych Olkhovych. 

Pavlo Frankovych applied to the Pension Fund of Ukraine for a pension. However, his application was refused because the title page of his collective farm worker’s employment record book had been completed incorrectly: it did not indicate the day and month of the applicant’s birth. In addition, one period of employment recorded in his regular employment record book was not included because there was an unauthorised correction to the date of the dismissal order.

Disagreeing with the Pension Fund’s decision, we filed a claim with the court. The court agreed with our arguments and ordered the Pension Fund to include the disputed periods of employment recorded in both the collective farm worker’s employment record book and the regular employment record book.

In its judgment, the court stated that the absence of the date of birth in the collective farm worker’s employment record book and a correction made to an entry in the employment record book could not constitute grounds for excluding certain periods of employment from the qualifying period. An employee cannot be held responsible for the accuracy and completeness of employment documents or for compliance with the proper procedure for maintaining and completing an employment record book and other employment documentation where such deficiencies resulted from the actions or omissions of the employer’s administration.

Furthermore, the defendant did not provide the court with any evidence demonstrating that the entries in the employment record book concerning the disputed periods of the claimant’s employment were inaccurate or unreliable. Therefore, in the court’s view, the Pension Fund had unjustifiably disregarded these periods when calculating the claimant’s qualifying period and had failed to take all necessary measures to verify them.