employers can reduce an occupational survivor’s pension, if the difference in age of spouses is not more than 10 years. You would have a legitimate interest to limit their financial risk in the case of such a pension commitment, decided by the Federal labour court on Tuesday in Erfurt, in the case of a couple from Bavaria (3 AZR 400/17). In the case of cheating him of the age difference of 15 years. The widow had complained through all instances against the employer because it reduced their survivor’s pension by five percent for each year, which was about an age difference of ten years. She saw it as an age discrimination.
such age-gap clause, and thus a disadvantage on grounds of age was justified, stated the highest German labour court judges. They defined for the first time an age limit to reductions in operating a survivor’s supply right. In the decision it says: “In an age-gap of eleven years, from which the clause takes effect, is applied to the common life of the cutting of the spouse, the survivor spends a legitimate part of his life without the Supply.”
In the specific case of the employer, the widow had said 60 per cent of the pension of its former employees. The supply order provided for a reduced payment in the case of an age difference of more than ten years.
The third Senate of the Federal labour court confirmed the judgment in its case-law. In February, he had decided that employers can refuse an occupational survivor’s pension even if the spouse of the former members of the company is more than 15 years younger. According to data from the Federal Statistical office, the age difference is more than 80 percent of the married couples is less than seven years.
