The Supreme Court of the Czech Republic (hereinafter referred to as „the Supreme Cout”), in its judgment of 27 May 2026, file number 25 Cdo 946/2024, the Court of Appeals finally ruled on the key legal issue of the interpretation of the so-called substitute acts – Act No. 116/2020 Coll., on compensation for damage caused by compulsory vaccination, and Act No. 569/2020 Coll., governing compensation for damage caused by vaccination against COVID-19. This happened on the basis of an appeal filed by our law firm on behalf of the Client.

At the same time, it interpreted the key condition of compensation – „particularly serious bodily harm“ – in a generally more lenient manner than the courts and the Ministry of Health of the Czech republic have done so far.

In the dispute in question, we have been representing a Client who has experienced side effects of vaccination, which are expressly provided for in the substitute decree to the relevant Acts. Nevertheless, he was rejected by the general courts from 2023, stating that he did not suffer particularly serious bodily harm within the meaning of case law. Only now has the Supreme Court annulled the dismissal judgments of both lower courts and returned the case for a new hearing. At the same time, he strongly rejected the interpretation according to which only those who have essentially no health would be entitled to compensation.

The result is a major turning point for those injured after mandatory vaccination and vaccination against COVID-19, as it[1] finally opens the way to fair compensation  after more than 6 years since Acts No. 116/2020 Coll. and No. 569/2020 Coll. came into effect.

Compensation is now to be granted where vaccination causes „medically diagnosable harm of such intensity that it can be classified as more intense pain suffered, more serious permanent consequences in the form of impairment of social functioning, prolonged incapacity for work or insignificant treatment costs[2]„, according to both Acts.

Why it’s a groundbreaking decision

The judgment in question creates long-needed case law on which hundreds of people harmed by vaccination can rely, both against COVID-19 and against mandatory vaccinations.

Previous judicial practice has so far generally rejected all cases that did not reach the extremely strict standard of „particularly serious bodily harm“. The courts mechanically adopted case law intended for a completely different type of case. The current decision of the Supreme Court will thus have an impact on all proceedings conducted on the basis of Acts No. 116/2020 Coll. and No. 569/2020 Coll.

The following key conclusions emerge from the judgment of the Supreme Court.

First of all, the standard of secondary victims does not apply to the claim of the primary injured party (vaccinated), and the case law on the concept of „particularly serious bodily harm“, which is used for secondary victims, is not applicable.

Furthermore, compensation for damage to health caused by vaccination must be fair within the meaning of Article 24 of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, and the interpretation of legal conditions must correspond to this – i.e. it must not make the entitlement impossible from the beginning.

Finally, and this is important for practice, ordinary courts must in each case individually assess the actual extent and severity of the consequences – not to reject the claim in a blanket manner with reference to the fact that these are not „comatose states“ or conditions „comparable to killing“ – the Supreme Court completely rejected such a generalization.

We welcome the fact that the Supreme Court has fulfilled what we have been advocating for in the interest of the Client and other injured parties from the beginning: that anyone who has been injured in the public interest is entitled to compensation – always according to individual circumstances. The state expects a certain level of sacrifice from each vaccinated person in favor of the protection of public health; However, where this victim grows into real and significant harm to health, the state must provide fair compensation – and it is necessary to take into account the specific circumstances of the individual case.

The genesis of the case: four years of refusal

After receiving the third dose of the vaccine in January 2022, the Client sought compensation for pain, for hindering social assertion and for loss of earnings. His claim was first rejected by the Ministry of Health, then by the court of first instance and the Municipal Court in Prague as an appellate court.

The argumentation was always the same: although the Client’s health consequences may be subjectively unpleasant and partially limiting, they do not reach the intensity of „particularly serious bodily harm“, and therefore the basic condition of the state’s liability was not met. In other words, according to the general courts, only those who essentially no longer had any health were entitled to compensation for bodily injury.

At the same time, the courts interpreted the term „particularly serious bodily harm“ according to the case law on Section 2959 of the Civil Code, i.e. according to the rules relating to compensation for so-called secondary victims – survivors and close persons. According to this case law, these are the most serious health injuries with consequences comparable in severity to the death of a loved one. In other words, as we have repeatedly objected: according to the current practice, compensation would basically belong only to those who actually no longer have any health.

Appeal on a point of law and motion to repeal part of Acts No. 116/2020 Coll. and No. 569/2020 Coll.

In the appeal on which the Supreme Court has now decided on behalf of the Client, we have defined four areas of objections. In particular, we objected that:

– the lower courts refused to deal with the actual extent and extent of the Client’s persistent difficulties and refused to carry out an expert opinion, although they do not have the necessary expertise to assess the severity of recurrent inflammation and myocarditis;

– the term „particularly serious bodily harm“ cannot be interpreted as strictly in the case of a direct (primary) injured party as in the case of secondary victims under Section 2959 of the Civil Code;

– the restrictive interpretation is contrary to Article 24 of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, which guarantees the right to fair compensation for damage to health caused by the procedure;

– the difference in wording between Acts No. 116/2020 Coll. and 569/2020 Coll. makes it possible to completely exclude the condition of particularly serious bodily harm in the case of vaccination against COVID-19.

The Supreme Court identified with the essence of our argumentation as early as 2025. By order of 31 March 2025, it suspended the proceedings and turned to the Constitutional Court with a proposal to repeal the phrase „particularly serious“ in both substitute acts, as it concluded that the limitation of entitlement conceived in this way was contrary to the constitutional order – this is the procedure we proposed in the appeal.

Proceedings for the annulment of parts of Acts No. 116/2020 Coll. and No. 569/2020 Coll. before the Constitutional Court

The Constitutional Court, by its resolution of 11 February 2026, file number Pl. ÚS 13/25, rejected the Supreme Court’s motion – partly because the petitioner was unjustified, partly as manifestly unfounded. The disputed words „particularly serious“ thus formally remained in the law.

However, the key thing was that the Constitutional Court also confirmed that a constitutionally compliant interpretation of  Section 2 of Act No. 569/2020 Coll. is possible and that the prerequisite for awarding compensation to the vaccinated (primarily injured party) can be constructed more benevolently than in the case of general compensation for damage or compensation (to secondary victims) under Section 2959 of the Civil Code. The Constitutional Court also did not have a problem with the difference in the wording of the relevant Acts – it even explicitly described the grammatically different interpretation of Act No. 569/2020 Coll. as constitutionally compliant – and therefore also possible.

The Constitutional Court thus effectively handed over the task back to the Supreme Court, which is called upon to interpret sub-constitutional law with respect to the constitutional order. The Supreme Court has now fulfilled this task.

What the Supreme Court has decided now: a new interpretation for the injured parties

After the case was returned, the Supreme Court proceeded to interpret both Acts No. 116/2020 Coll. and No. 569/2020 Coll. in the light of the resolution of the plenary of the Constitutional Court. The result is a major benefit for those injured after vaccination.

The Supreme Court first bridged the different wording of the two regulations. It stated that the literal wording of Section 2 of Act No. 569/2020 Coll. is almost incomprehensible due to its unclear wording, and concluded that it should be interpreted in accordance with Section 2 (1) of the Act. 1 of Act No. 116/2020 Coll. The condition of „particularly serious bodily harm“ thus applies equally to both groups of cases – but in a new meaning with regard to the position of the primary victims. The grammatical interpretation, which would be by far the most favourable for injured parties after vaccination against COVID-19, was not used by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court also unequivocally rejected that the term „primary injured person“ should be interpreted in accordance with the strict case law on Section 2959 of the Civil Code concerning secondary victims. According to the court, the vaccinated person‚s claim cannot only be about  conditions approaching death, i.e., for example, only comatose states or conditions associated with the loss of self-care. These should be sufficiently serious health consequences, not of minimal or lesser significance and impact on the injured party.

At the same time, the court defined the border on both sides. Compensation does not belong to those in whom „the body’s reaction was short-lived, did not threaten their lives or significantly exclude them from normal life activities“[3] – this is where a certain degree of social solidarity comes in, within which, according to the Supreme Court, every vaccinated person should endure common, less significant side effects of vaccination.

However, where vaccination causes „medically diagnosable harm of such intensity that it can be classified as more intense pain suffered, more serious permanent consequences in the form of impairment of social functioning, prolonged incapacity for work or significant costs of treatment, the state’s compensatory obligation under both substitute acts comes into play.“[4]

The Supreme Court relied, among other things, on a comparative analysis prepared by its Department of Analytics and Comparative Law and a report by the University of Oxford (COVID-19 Vaccine No Fault Compensation Schemes) covering 21 countries. The conclusion is that most European countries apply so-called no-fault compensation mechanisms and although they require serious, permanent or long-term damage to health, no state compensates only conditions that are close to death.

It is therefore a complete Czech uniqueness, given by an obviously incorrectly prepared law, which the Supreme Court is now compensating. The Supreme Court had previously declared the wording of the law unconstitutional.

At the same time, it cannot be ignored that the Ministry of Health explicitly opposed this more favourable interpretation: „The intention of the legislator to compensate the consequences of vaccination against COVID-19 in a similar way to the consequences of compulsory vaccination was beyond doubt, the government submitted the bill to the Chamber of Deputies with the knowledge that only the most serious consequences would be compensated, i.e. only and only particularly serious bodily harm in the interpretative sense of the existing applicable case law and professional literature. With the same awareness, the law in question was then approved by both chambers of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.“[5]

Conclusion

We welcome the fact that the Supreme Court has fulfilled what we have been advocating for in the interest of the Client and other injured parties from the beginning: that anyone who has been harmed in the public interest is entitled to compensation. The state expects a certain level of sacrifice from each vaccinated person in favor of the protection of public health; However, where this sacrifice grows into real and tangible harm to health, the state must provide fair compensation.

The team of AK Sudolská

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[1] Act No. 116/2020 Coll. entered into force on 8. 4. 2020; Act No. 569/2020 Coll., then entered into force on 23. 12. 2020.

[2] Paragraph 35 of the judgment of the Supreme Court of 27 May 2026, file number 25 Cdo 946/2024-419.

[3] Paragraph 35 of the judgment of the Supreme Court of 27 May 2026, file number 25 Cdo 946/2024-419.

[4] Paragraph 35 of the judgment of the Supreme Court of 27 May 2026, file number 25 Cdo 946/2024-419.

[5] Paragraph 5 of the judgment of the Supreme Court of 27 May 2026, file number 25 Cdo 946/2024-419.

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