A ruling from the Supreme Court stated that workers can receive compensation from their corporations even if they bear some responsibility for industrial accidents. Previously, the Supreme Court's full bench had changed its precedent in 2022 to state that if an industrial accident occurs due to the negligence of the corporation, the worker, and a third party, the compensation should be calculated in favor of the worker. This Supreme Court ruling is the first to declare that even in cases where an industrial accident occurs due to the negligence of the corporations and the worker without third-party involvement, compensation should be calculated favorably for the worker.
The Supreme Court's third division (Chief Justice Oh Seok-jun) announced on the 27th that it had overturned the second trial's ruling which had dismissed the damage compensation lawsuit filed by Worker A against construction company B, and sent the case back to the Seoul Central District Court.
Worker A, an employee of company B, is reported to have suffered a wrist injury while working at a construction site in June 2021. Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service (K-COMWEL) acknowledged A's accident as a work-related injury and provided approximately 54.2 million won in disability compensation to A. A subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company for damage compensation.
In this case, the key issue was how to calculate A's damage compensation. According to Supreme Court precedent, the compensation for workers injured by industrial accidents is determined by subtracting the disability benefit amount from the lost earnings compensation (the income the worker could have earned had the accident not occurred) and then multiplying that amount by the corporation's negligence ratio.
However, the first and second trial judges judged A's negligence ratio in the industrial accident to be 30% and decided that there was no damage compensation to be paid by the corporation to A. This was because, unlike the Supreme Court precedent, they calculated the compensation by multiplying the lost earnings damage amount by the corporation's negligence ratio and then subtracting the disability benefit amount, resulting in a negative amount. This method is considered favorable to the corporation and unfavorable to the worker.
Therefore, the Supreme Court stated that the first and second trials made judgments contrary to the Supreme Court precedent and sent the case back for retrial. The Supreme Court noted, "Since the corporation ultimately bears the amount corresponding to the worker's negligence ratio out of the insurance compensation for workers with industrial accidents, it should determine the compensation using the 'deducting after negligence offset' method."