During the continuation of the employment contract, regardless of the reason for the death of the employee, the employment contract between the parties loses its legal existence. The effect of the death of the employee on the employment contract is clearly stated in Article 338/1 of the SCO and Article 440 of the TCO, which is regulated on the basis of this provision. The employment contract terminates automatically upon the death of the employee, and for this result to arise, it is not necessary for the legal heirs left behind by the employee or the employer to give a notice of termination after the death of the employee. The acceptance of the termination of the employment contract upon the death of the employee in the legal regulations is a natural consequence of the fact that the employee is obliged to personally perform the work undertaken during his/her lifetime.

Neither Labour Law No. 4857 nor Maritime Labour Law No. 854 stipulates that the employer shall make a payment to the survivors of the deceased employee following the automatic termination of the employment contract upon the death of the employee. However, Article 18 of the Press Labour Law, titled death indemnity, stipulates that “In the event of termination of the employment contract due to the death of the journalist, his/her spouse and children, and in their absence, the members of his/her family whose livelihood depends on him/her, shall receive death indemnity in the amount of seniority rights, not less than three times the monthly wage of the deceased”. While this is the case in terms of Turkish Law, the regulation in Article 338/2 of the Swiss Code of Obligations has been translated and transferred to Article 440 of the Turkish Code of Obligations, and a regulation similar to the death indemnity in the Press Labour Law has been introduced. According to Article 338/2 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, “However, the employer is obliged to pay wages to the deceased employee’s spouse, registered union, minor children and, in the absence of these heirs, to other dependent survivors for an additional month calculated as of the day of death, or for an additional two months in the case of five years of seniority”. According to the second sentence of Article 440/1 of the Turkish Code of Obligations, “The employer is obliged to pay one month’s wage to the surviving spouse and minor children of the deceased employee, or in the absence of such heirs, to the dependents of the deceased employee, starting from the day of death, or two months’ wage if the service relationship has continued for more than five years.”

The right to demand payment from the employer is not a right arising from the estate of the deceased employee and passing to the heirs according to the principles of inheritance. This right arises directly for the surviving beneficiaries mentioned separately in each article. Therefore, even if the inheritance is rejected, the right to claim payment does not disappear, as the right is originally recognised to the persons concerned.

To be entitled to payment, it is necessary to be a beneficiary who are foreseen to claim payment at the time of death. The surviving spouse and minor children of the deceased worker, or if these are not available, the persons who were dependent on the worker in his/her lifetime, shall be entitled to the payment. According to Article 338/2 of the SCO, with the surviving spouse, the registered union of the deceased worker is also listed as the beneficiary. For the beneficiaries to be entitled to the payment, the employment contract concluded between the employee and the employer must be a valid contract and the employee must have started to work in accordance with the contract. To be entitled to the payment, the seniority period of the worker before the date of death is not of any importance. In the payment to be made by the employer to the surviving beneficiaries due to the death of the worker, the seniority period is taken into consideration in determining the amount entitled, not in entitlement to payment. In this framework, if the seniority period at the date of the death of the worker is five years or less, the amount of payment that can be requested is the amount of one month’s wage of the worker. On the other hand, if the seniority period at the date of the worker’s death exceeds five years, the amount of payment to be paid is two months’ salary.

There is no clarity as to how the payment amount will be divided among more than one beneficiary at the same time. The predominant view adopted in Turkish and Swiss law is that the payment amount should be divided equally. The minority opinion, on the other hand, accepts that the distribution should be made according to the inheritance shares. In the decision of Antalya RCA 9th Civil Chamber dated 03/05/2020 and numbered 2019/2696 E. and 2020/657 K., which is the first decision regarding the application of the regulation on death compensation under Article 440 of the TCO, it was concluded that death compensation should be divided among the persons entitled to death compensation in proportion to their inheritance shares specified in the certificate of inheritance.

Since there is no separate interest rate determined for the payment to be made by the employer to the surviving beneficiaries due to the death of the employee, legal interest should be applied. The automatic termination of the employment contract upon the death of the employee causes the receivable regarding the payment to be made by the employer to the right holders left behind due to the death to become due, but the default of the employer does not arise simultaneously and automatically with the receivable becoming due. There is no clarity in both Art. 338/2 of the SCO and Art. 440 of the TCO that the payment must be made to the persons determined as beneficiaries on the date of death. For this reason, although the decision of the 9th Civil Chamber of Antalya RCA is correct in determining that legal interest should be applied in death compensation, it is not correct to run the interest from the date of death without requiring the employer to be in default.

Within the framework of the current legal regulations, the statute of limitations for death compensation should be accepted as 10 years from the date of death of the worker.

The provisions regarding the payment to be made by the employer to the beneficiaries left behind due to the death of the employee are of a relative mandatory nature. For this reason, it is possible to make arrangements that make the right better than the legal regulation, for example, extending the duration of the payment or expanding the scope of the persons who will benefit from the payment.

In the doctrine of labour law, the debate focuses on whether the provision on death indemnity stipulated in Article 440 of the TCO can be applied to workers subject to the Labour Law and seafarers subject to the Maritime Labour Law, other than to workers subject to the Turkish Code of Obligations. Although there are different opinions on the subject, it is more appropriate to accept that the provision is applicable only to workers subject to the provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations. In the decision of the 9th Civil Chamber of Antalya RCA dated 03/05/2020 and numbered 2019/2696 E. and 2020/657 K., it was concluded that workers subject to the Labour Law and seafarers subject to the Maritime Labour Law may also claim death indemnity stipulated in Article 440 of the TCO, and that there is no obstacle to request death indemnity together with severance pay.