Soroka O. Compensation for spiritual injury due to work accidents and occupational diseases.

The thesis highlights certain legal problems of compensation for spiritual injury caused by work accidents and occupational diseases, resulting in substantiation of new theoretical provisions, practical recommendations and proposals on research issues, development of the author's method of compensation for spiritual injury caused by work accidents and occupational diseases and proving the possibility of its practical application. The author expressed the opinion that calculation of the monetary equivalent of spiritual injury caused to an employee by a work accident or an occupational disease should be based on the subsistence level for a person who lost the ability to work. Spiritual injury should be compensated regardless of the tangible damage to be compensated and should not be related to this amount compensated. The thesis highlights the author's method of calculation of the monetary equivalent of non-pecuniary damage caused to an employee by occupational injuries and diseases, based on the following criteria: (1) physiological characteristics; (2) professional characteristics; (3) severity of the occupational disease or injury; (4) the employee’s disability degree; (5) duration of the employee's treatment for rehabilitation (after injury or revealing an occupational disease). The author proved that an important condition for determination of the amount of compensation for spiritual injury caused by a work accident and an occupational disease should be the injured worker’s age, because if the damage is caused to persons aged under 35, the compensation amount should consider that the person of working age has to change his/her lifestyle, position or even profession. The author argued that the employer may indemnify the employee for spiritual injury caused by an accident or occupational disease as prescribed by law, or may enter into a separate indemnity agreement. However, if the employee has already received compensation for spiritual injury on the basis of an agreement between him and the employer, there are no grounds for re-indemnification of the same damage in court. The thesis contains a detailed analysis of the order for compensation for spiritual injury caused to an employee by a work accident or an occupational disease.