DECISION
In the legal dispute between
1. xxx,
2. xxx,
3. xxx,
4. xxx,
5. xxx,
6. xxx,
– Plaintiffs –
Legal representative:
for 1-6: Attorney Sven Adam,
Lange Geismarstraße 55, 37073 Göttingen
against
County xxx,
– Defendant –
The 43rd Chamber of the Hildesheim Social Court decided on October 13, 2014, through Judge xxx of the Social Court:
The defendant shall bear the necessary extrajudicial costs of the plaintiffs.
REASONS
Following the plaintiffs' declaration of settlement, the only remaining point of contention between the parties is the question of who bears the costs.
Pursuant to Section 193 Paragraph 1 of the Social Courts Act (SGG), the court must decide by order, upon application, whether and to what extent the parties must reimburse each other's costs if the proceedings – as in this case – are terminated other than by judgment.
This decision on costs is at the court's discretion, taking into account the current state of the case and the legal arguments, with particular emphasis on the prospects of success (Leitherer in: Meyer-Ladewig/Keller/Leitherer, SGG, 10th edition, § 193, marginal note 13 with further references). Other criteria for the cost decision include, above all, the outcome of the proceedings, the circumstances that led to the filing of the lawsuit, and the circumstances that led to the settlement of the dispute (cf. Niesel, Der Sozialgerichtsprozess, 5th edition, marginal notes 610, 613 with further references).
The exercise of the discretion granted to the court leads to the result that the defendant must reimburse the plaintiffs for their necessary extrajudicial costs.
In this context, it had to be taken into account that the review application received by the defendant on 01.4.2013 was obviously lost there (see file note page 285 of the administrative file) and that the defendant therefore only started processing the application after receipt of the action for failure to act filed on 22.00.2013.
However, the deadline stipulated in Section 88 of the Social Court Act (SGG) had already expired by that time. The fact that the application submitted by fax on April 1, 2013, was not forwarded to the responsible case worker due to a clerical error or similar does not constitute sufficient grounds within the meaning of Section 88 of the SGG. This circumstance falls within the defendant's sphere of responsibility.
Whether the plaintiffs subsequently submitted all the necessary documents for processing the application in a timely manner was irrelevant. The decisive factor is that no processing of the application took place before the expiry of the deadline stipulated in Section 88 of the Social Court Act (SGG), and thus there was inactivity within the meaning of this provision.
This decision is unappealable according to § 172 para. 3 no. 3 SGG.
