Set-off against old-age pension

Justices: Endresen, Bull, Falch, Østensen Berglund, Thyness

A member of the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund received by mistake NOK 655 000 too much in disability pension before he went on old-age pension. The Supreme Court found like the Court of Appeal that the claim for repayment under section 44 subsection 6 of the Public Service Pension Fund Act, which was time-barred under the general rule in section 2 of the Limitation of Claims Act, could be set off against the current old-age pension in accordance with the provision on set-off against time-barred claims in section 26 (b) of the Limitation of Claims Act. The claim for repayment and the claim for old-age pension from the pension fund were considered so closely connected that they derived from the same legal context. It was also assumed that pension rights had been acquired successively during the employment, so that they in principle could be set off against the amount of old-age pension acquired at the time the claim for repayment became time-barred. However, in the case at hand, it followed from section 20 of the Public Service Pension Fund Act that the entire claim for old-age pension had arisen at the time the disability pension was granted. The primary claim had thus arisen before the counterclaim was time-barred. The conditions for set-off were then met, and Article 1 Protocol 1 of the Convention on Human Rights could not prevent set-off.