Reimbursement of pre-trial legal fees as compensable material damage in excessive delay of justice proceedings

The Federal Social Court (BSG) dismissed the plaintiff's appeal, upholding the lower court's denial of compensation for pre-trial legal fees as a material disadvantage in a claim for an excessively long social court proceeding. The dispute centered on whether the costs incurred for an attorney retained to demand compensation out of court constituted a compensable material loss under the compensation law for excessively long proceedings. The court held that while the procedural delay was excessive, the plaintiff failed to establish a necessary causal link between the delay and the specific expense of external legal advice for the extrajudicial claim, as such retention was not deemed strictly necessary for the assertion of the compensation right; consequently, the plaintiff's claim for reimbursement of attorney fees was rejected, though the right to claim appropriate immaterial compensation for the delay itself remained theoretically open but was not pursued or granted in this specific instance.