Corona Measures #1: Suspension of the Running of Time Limits, Sick Leave and the Nursing Benefit (OČR)

Your rights will be preserved

The current situation has caught most of humanity unprepared. If you too are one of those who waited until the last moment to assert their claim, the new restrictions have certainly left you uncertain. The debtor still has not paid, and your limitation period is due to expire in a few days or weeks. Law firms are operating in a limited mode, and you have not yet assembled the documents for your action.

A great many identical or similar situations have arisen, and so, as part of the adopted measures, the suspension of limitation periods, preclusive (so-called forfeiture) periods and procedural time limits until 30 April 2020 was also introduced.

What time limits are we actually talking about?

1. The preclusive period

is the period during which you hold a certain right, but on the expiry of which that right ceases to exist. This is, for example, the right to lodge a legal remedy (for instance an appeal) within 15 days of the court’s decision. In a standard situation, after 15 days your right is “forfeited” and thus ceases to exist.

If, however, a preclusive period began to run for you before 27 March 2020 and has not yet expired, its running is suspended on 27 March and will begin to run again from 1 May 2020. So if you still had 5 days left to submit a statement, you may submit it as late as 5 May.

CAUTION! If your right was forfeited between 12 March 2020 and 26 March 2020, the preclusive period, under the new act, will expire only after 30 days from the act taking effect have elapsed, i.e. after 26 April 2020. Until then you have the opportunity to exercise your right, which will cease to exist upon its expiry.

2. The procedural time limit

If a law or a court ordered you to do something within a certain period — for example, to vacate an apartment within two months — this is a procedural time limit. As with preclusion, this procedural time limit stops running for you as of 27 March 2020 until the end of April. From 1 May 2020 it runs on. If your procedural time limit expired between 12 and 26 March, then under the new rules it is deemed to have expired only from 27 April 2020.

If, however, the matter could not tolerate delay because of a threat to the life, health, safety or freedom of, or significant harm to, a party or participant in the proceedings, the court may rule that the suspension of the running of the time limit does not apply, and at the same time set a new reasonable time limit.

3. The limitation period

In the case of the limitation period, this is the period that the law sets for you to exercise your right. On its expiry the right does not cease to exist; it merely loses its legal force. The general limitation period is 3 years, but its length may vary according to the particular types of contractual relationship — for example, in commercial relationships the general limitation period is 4 years.

If you concluded a purchase contract with someone under which the buyer was to pay you for the subject of the contract on 29 March 2017, the three-year limitation period begins to run for you from the following day (from 30 March 2017) and would have expired on 30 March 2020.

Thanks to the adopted measure, however, you need not worry that your right will become time-barred during the extraordinary situation. Since, as of today (27 March 2020), the limitation period stops running and the start of its running is deferred to 1 May 2020, your right will become time-barred only after the remaining 4 days have elapsed, i.e. on 4 May 2020.

As with the time limits mentioned above, a limitation period that expired between 12 and 26 March is likewise preserved until 26 April 2020.

Whether the suspension of the running of time limits will be extended further is not yet known. The current situation will be decisive.

Sickness benefit from the state instead of wage compensation

Have you been declared temporarily unfit for work because a quarantine measure or isolation was imposed? In that case, another measure arising from the new legislation applies to you.

Under the new rules, you are now entitled to a sickness benefit from the Social Insurance Agency as early as the 1st day of your incapacity for work. Under the old rules, you were entitled to a sickness benefit only from the 11th day of temporary incapacity for work, whereby for the first 10 days your employer was obliged to pay you wage compensation.

How much will the Social Insurance Agency pay you?

From the first day of temporary incapacity for work, you will be entitled to a sickness benefit amounting to 55% of your daily assessment base.

The daily assessment base for determining the amount of the sickness benefit is the ratio of the sum of your gross income on which sickness insurance contributions were paid during the decisive period to the number of days in that decisive period.

If you worked for the same employer from 1 January 2019, the decisive period is the calendar year 2019. Your gross income for that year is added up and divided by the number of days, i.e. by 365.

If, however, you have been employed with your current employer for more than 90 days but not for the whole of the previous calendar year, the amount of your sickness benefit is calculated according to a decisive period that is the period from the inception of your sickness insurance until the end of the calendar month preceding the calendar month in which the ground for granting the sickness benefit arose. If you have been in quarantine since 27 March 2020 and have been employed since October 2019, your gross income for the months October 2019 to February 2020 is added up and divided by the number of days in that period.

If you have not been employed with your current employer for more than 90 days, the amount of your daily assessment base, and thus the amount of your sickness benefit, is determined according to the gross income earned during the calendar year 2019 with another employer with whom you were employed for at least 90 days.

Entitlement to the nursing benefit

A change also occurs in the case of the nursing benefit, known by the abbreviation OČR.

Under the new rules, the nursing benefit will be available to any person who has obtained a certificate from a doctor confirming that they personally and full-time care for a child up to the age of sixteen and also, without a medical certificate, where the person:

• cares for a child up to ten years of age, where:

1. a quarantine measure has been imposed on the child,

1. the pre-school facility or social-services facility in which care is provided to the child, or the school the child attends, has been closed by a decision of the competent authorities or a quarantine measure has been imposed in it,

1. the person who otherwise cares for the child has fallen ill, has had a quarantine measure imposed on them, or has been admitted to institutional care at a healthcare facility, and therefore cannot care for the child; or

• cares for a relative in the direct line, a sibling, a spouse, or a parent of a spouse, where the social-services facility in which such a person is provided with a social service on an outpatient or residential basis has been closed by a decision of the competent authorities or a quarantine measure has been imposed in it.

The nursing benefit is paid for the entire duration of the need for care, and, like the sickness benefit, the amount of the nursing benefit is 55% of the daily assessment base.

Authors: JUDr. Ondrej Steiniger and Magdaléna Karvaiová

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