EU: under no circumstances does the death of a worker extinguish his right to paid annual leave (ECJ)

In this case, a German employee worked for a company but was declared unfit to work because of a serious disease, and eventually died. Yet, on the date of his death, he had accumulated 140.5 days of annual leave outstanding. Indeed, in Germany, employees can save annual leave. Therefore, his widow submitted an application to K+K for an allowance in lieu which corresponded to the annual leave not taken by her husband. The undertaking rejected the application expressing doubts that an inherita