DECISION
In the legal dispute
xxx,
Plaintiff,
Legal representative:
Attorney Sven Adam
Lange, Geismarstraße 55, 37073 Göttingen
against
Offenbach District,
District Committee Department of Local Government Supervision and Law,
Werner-Hilpert-Straße 1, 63128 Dietzenbach,
Defendant,
The 16th Chamber of the Social Court of Darmstadt decided on April 18, 2023, through its presiding judge, Judge xxx of the Social Court:
The defendant must reimburse the plaintiff's extrajudicial costs.
REASONS
The plaintiff's application for reimbursement of extrajudicial costs by the defendant is admissible and well-founded.
If a legal dispute is concluded other than by judgment, the court, upon application by a party, must decide by order which party is to bear the costs necessary for the appropriate pursuit or defense of its legal rights (§ 193 para. 1 sentence 2 and para. 2 of the Social Court Act (SGG)). The decision to be made in this respect is at the court's discretion and is neither bound by the applications nor dependent on the outcome of the legal dispute (cf. Meyer-Ladewig, Commentary on the SGG, 13th ed., § 193 marginal note 12). However, the outcome of the legal dispute as well as the factual and legal situation must be considered in exercising this discretion. The court may also consider whether there was cause for initiating the proceedings (Meyer-Ladewig, ibid., § 193 marginal note 12b). The court must, however, take all circumstances of the individual case into account. It may not base its decision solely on the outcome of the legal dispute. Even a prevailing party can be ordered to reimburse costs according to the principle of causation. The court can consider the reason for the lawsuit, for example, if the defendant gave cause for the lawsuit through improper handling of the case or contributed to confusion through ambiguous statements, or conversely, whether the plaintiff caused unnecessary costs (Meyer – Ladewig, loc. cit., § 193 para. 12b with further references).
Applying these principles, the defendant is obligated in the present case to bear the plaintiff's extrajudicial costs. Reimbursement of costs by the defendant is equitable in this case. Since the discretionary decision to be made pursuant to Section 193 of the Social Court Act (SGG) is a discretionary decision based on equity, in which all circumstances of the individual case can be taken into account, the primary focus should not be on the success of the action, but rather on a weighting of all criteria (cf. Lower Saxony-Bremen Higher Social Court [1], judgment of 19 March 2014 – L 13 AS 233 / 12 -; Juris).
In the present proceedings, the criterion of the prospects of success on the merits, weighing all relevant criteria, is of paramount importance. The plaintiff has prevailed completely in these proceedings. This is because the provisions decisive for the outcome of these proceedings, namely Sections 3, 3a Paragraph 1 No. 2, and Paragraph 2 No. 2 of the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act (AsylbLG), are deemed unconstitutional by analogy with the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of October 19, 2022 (Case No.: 1 BvL 3/21) regarding the identical provision in Section 2 Paragraph 1 Sentence 4 No. 1 AsylbLG. This view also underlies the defendant's admission of liability in the present legal dispute. At least on the basis of this decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, the plaintiff is entitled to the higher benefit claim against the defendant for the period in dispute here.
Due to the plaintiff's resulting success in the main proceedings, the defendant is obligated to reimburse the plaintiff's extrajudicial costs, taking into account all relevant criteria.
The appeal against this decision is excluded pursuant to Section 172 Paragraph 3 of the Social Courts Act (SGG).
