Divorce Pension Compensation Annuity Inheritability Dispute

The appellate court reviewed a dispute arising from a divorce decree where the lower court had ordered the husband's pension fund to pay the wife a lifelong, non-inheritable monthly annuity as compensation for pension claims under Article 124(1) of the Civil Code. The wife appealed, seeking to have this annuity made passively inheritable upon the husband's death. The court reasoned that the compensation claim under Art. 124(1) ZGB is directed against the other spouse, not the pension institution, and once a pension event occurs and a pension is already being paid, there is no longer a divisible lump-sum benefit, meaning the pension institution cannot continue the payments to the survivor. The court concluded that only a capital compensation under Art. 124(1) ZGB is passively inheritable as an estate debt binding the heirs, not the pension institution, and therefore the annuity stipulated as a lifetime payment is not passively inheritable from the pension fund.