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Among the above-mentioned plaintiffs is the Prosecutor General Evaldas Pašilis, who was previously president of the Ukmergė court.
The Vilnius City District Court held that the timeframe for bringing an action should have been calculated on the basis of knowledge of the mercury contamination in 2012-2013, and not on the decision of the Supreme Court made last year, by which was dismissed due to the prescription.
“ In the present case, the controversial relationship (…) was subject to a general prescription period of three years, which in this case did not refer to the adoption of the Resolution of June 6, 2019, but to the moment of the damage suffered by the plaintiffs in 2012-2013 and learned, and these periods, in the opinion of the court, coincide ”, the court ruled.
According to TV3, 14 plaintiffs asked the defendants – the Government and the National Administration of Courts – to pay 224 thousand euros.
According to the court, in 2012, those in court were evacuated from the building in December and could not help but understand the seriousness of the situation. Furthermore, the discovery of mercury in court caused resonance and was widely covered in the press, so even plaintiffs who were not working in court at the time had to find out.
Most of the claimants received benefits in 2013 for the need to improve their health after mercury vapor poisoning, so they needed to understand the reasons why they were being paid.
Furthermore, according to the court, the plaintiffs already knew in 2003 that they were working in premises contaminated with mercury because air sampling revealed that the concentration of mercury vapor in them exceeded the norms.
“Therefore, there is no basis to conclude that the statute of limitations for the action in the present case began to run later than specified,” the court ruled.
Although it dismissed the statute of limitations, the court also ruled on the merits of his claims and assessed that they had not been proven.
According to the deep conviction of the court, the state could not objectively foresee the events of 2012-2013 in 2003, so there is no objective need to take care of the safety of employees in 2003 as was done in 2012 The employees themselves did not make any requests or claim to the state or employer during that time. There is no basis to conclude with the data in the event that the State has not complied with its positive obligation to attend to the plaintiffs in the way that was necessary at that time, ”the court affirms.
Additionally, the application is accompanied by findings from highly qualified toxicologists that the applicants did not show any signs of acute or chronic mercury poisoning and that the illnesses they were diagnosed with were not associated with elevated levels of mercury in their blood.
Based on these and other arguments, the court determined that “the plaintiffs did not prove the fact of the non-material damage claimed, they did not name and substantiate relevant criteria and specific circumstances, but only hypothetical presumptions about health and pre-existing conditions, most of the which are normal years’.
This court decision can be appealed to the Vilnius Regional Court.
The lawsuit was brought against the State of Lithuania by 14 people who still worked or had worked at the Ukmergė Court, including E. Pašilis, who is currently acting Prosecutor General and previously served as President of this court. The plaintiffs sought compensation for non-pecuniary damages and a bonus for work performed in deviations from normal working conditions.
The defendants in the case are the State of Lithuania, represented by the Government, and the Vilnius Regional District Court.
The case is related to the events that occurred in the Ukmergė court, when mercury was found in the court in 2003, and in 2012 an even larger quantity (about three kilograms) was detected during the operation of the alarm system.
In June last year, the Lithuanian Supreme Court sentenced 344.5 thousand people to work in a court contaminated with mercury. moral damage. 31 people had filed complaints against the State in this case: judges, officials, lawyers, prosecutors who worked at the court.
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