TST Orders Split of FGTS Lawsuits Between Labor and Common Courts

Overview

• The Tribunal Superior do Trabalho issued a binding rule this week that divides FGTS withdrawal cases into two groups and assigns them to different courts.
• Cases tied directly to the employment contract, such as dismissal without cause, rescisão indireta, agreement-based termination, and company closure will stay in the Justiça do Trabalho.
• Withdrawals based only on statutory criteria, like retirement, serious illness, death, housing finance and calamity, must go to the Justiça comum because they do not require resolving labor-law questions.
• The ruling was issued through an incident of recursos repetitivos (Tema 32) and includes a transition rule that keeps any case with a final merits sentence in the labor courts until judgment and execution end.
• The TST reversed its prior broad jurisdictional stance to align with the STJ, a move meant to reduce forum-shopping and legal uncertainty for workers, employers and Caixa Econômica Federal.