DECISION
In the legal dispute
xxx,
Plaintiff,
Legal Representative: Attorney Sven Adam, Lange Geismarstraße 55, 37073 Göttingen,
against
xxx,
defendant,
The Social Court of Hildesheim – 34th Chamber – decided on October 19, 2012, through its presiding judge, Director of the Social Court xxx:
The defendant must reimburse half of the plaintiff's necessary extrajudicial costs.
REASONS
I.
It is still disputed whether the parties have to reimburse each other for costs.
In her lawsuit filed on August 12, 2010, the plaintiff sought to compel the defendant to grant her, by amending the conflicting decisions, an additional needs allowance for a costly diet pursuant to Section 30 Paragraph 5 of the German Social Code, Book XII (SGB XII), for the period from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011.
In a comparable case concerning a different benefit period, the Lower Saxony-Bremen State Social Court (LSG) obtained the plaintiff's medical report dated May 25, 2012, which stated that the plaintiff's existing medical conditions did not necessitate a costly diet. The plaintiff subsequently withdrew her appeal and this claim. By order dated August 15, 2012 – S 8 SO 34/12 – the LSG ordered the defendant to reimburse half of the plaintiff's costs. The plaintiff refers to this order and requests, for this concluded case,
to order the defendant to reimburse half of her extrajudicial costs.
The defendant requests that
the application be rejected.
He believes that the LSG's view on the failure to conduct official investigations and the resulting obligation to bear costs is incorrect.
For details of the facts and the legal arguments, reference is made to the court file and the administrative file that were available and formed the basis of the court's decision.
II.
The application for costs is successful.
According to Section 193 Paragraph 1 of the Social Courts Act (SGG), the court decides by order, upon application, whether and to what extent the parties have to reimburse each other's costs if the proceedings — as in this case — are terminated other than by a contested decision.
The decision regarding costs is, in principle, at the court's discretion. As criteria guiding this discretion, the court must consider not only the outcome of the proceedings but also the circumstances that led to the court's involvement and the resolution of the application (see Meyer — Ladewig/Leitherer, in: Meyer — Ladewig/Keller/Leitherer, SGG, 10th edition, § 193, marginal note 13, with further references).
The court's exercise of discretion leads to the conclusion that the plaintiff can demand reimbursement of half of her extrajudicial costs from the defendant. Based on its own assessment, the court concurs with the legal opinion of the Higher Social Court (LSG) in its decision of August 15, 2012, which is known to the parties. A different decision is not conceivable, as the defendant also issued a negative ruling in those proceedings without possessing a sufficiently comprehensible and sound basis for assessing the issue at hand.
To avoid repetition, the court refers to the aforementioned decision of the LSG and refrains from further explaining the grounds for the decision.
The appeal against this decision on costs is excluded pursuant to Section 172 Paragraph 3 No. 3 of the Social Court Act (SGG).
