Legal hearing also for the hearing impaired

BSG: Courts must ensure agreement
Courts must enable hearing and speech impaired people to communicate in court and provide necessary technical aids. Otherwise, there is a violation of the right to be heard and thus a procedural violation, decided the Federal Social Court (BSG) in Kassel in a decision published on Friday, November 10, 2017, (Ref .: B 3 KR 7/17 B).

(Image: Brian Jackson / fotolia.com)

In a specific legal dispute, the hearing-impaired plaintiff from North Rhine-Westphalia needed hearing aids for her two ears. From her health insurance company she demanded the reimbursement of expensive equipment. In her experience, an equity-free cash-hearing aid is out of the question, as they did not meet the requirements - for example for television and telephoning. She did not try this out.

Before the Regional Social Court (LSG) North Rhine-Westphalia, she had with their lawsuit no success. Her statements on the needs of her hearing aids were not credible and contradictory. She also had to test the box hearing aids.

The applicant alleged a procedural violation. She could not sufficiently follow the course of the proceedings because of her hearing impairment. The LSG also did not want them to use a hearing aid during the hearing. Since this takes up directly on the ear with a microphone voices and passed on to the organ, a judge had feared that with it unacceptable sound recordings could be made.

Later, the judge of the LSG could not remember exactly, but did not exclude the statement of the woman. An application for the use of the hearing aid she did not ask.

In its decision of 28 September 2017, the BSG found a procedural violation. The LSG did not grant the applicant sufficient rights of defense. Courts have a duty of care to ensure sufficient communication possibilities. According to this, hearing and speech impaired people would have to be provided with the necessary technical aids for communication.

The LSG judge had quite considered it possible that he spontaneously voiced concerns in the hearing against the use of a hearing aid brought by the plaintiff. Conflicting and unbelievable statements of the woman could lie in the fact that she could not follow the hearing by hearing. The LSG would therefore have to renegotiate the case, the BSG ruled.

The supreme social justice also recalled that hearing impaired may not be referred to the fixed prices for hearing aids. According to the jurisprudence of the BSG, "the insured persons of the statutory health insurance are entitled to the hearing aid supply which, according to the state of medical technology, allows the best possible approximation to the hearing of healthy persons, as far as this offers a considerable advantage in everyday life". This applies even if such a supply is not guaranteed for a fixed amount.

Thus, on 30 October 2014, the BSG had ruled that health insurance funds and pension insurance are obliged to provide comprehensive disability compensation (Ref .: B 5 R 8/14 R, JurAgentur Report dated 16 April 2015). Already on 17 December 2009, although the court had declared fixed amounts for hearing aids admissible, they would have to be so high that they were sufficient for a true disability compensation (ref .: B 3 KR 20/08 R). fle / mwo