[Exclusive] Court Recognizes Work-Related Injury for Securities Firm Employee Who Died After Working 32 Hours a Week

The Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service and Court Expert Opinions Denying Causality Overturned
Judges: "Ministry of Employment and Labor's Notice on Working Hours Is Not an Absolute Standard for Overwork Judgment"

Seoul Administrative Court, Yangjae-dong, Seoul. / Photo by Seoul Administrative Court

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] A court ruling has recognized a work-related injury due to overwork for a securities firm employee who died after working only 30 to 32 hours per week, far below the statutory 40-hour workweek.

Although both the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service (hereafter the Service) and the court-appointed medical expert denied a causal relationship between the work and the death, citing the working hours far below the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s announced ‘overwork recognition criteria’ and the deceased’s smoking habits, the judge overturned the result through a normative judgment in an unprecedented case.

The ruling is also significant in that it considered customer service activities such as consultations conducted outside official working hours when assessing whether the workload of the white-collar (mental labor) securities firm employee was excessive.

According to the legal community on the 21st, the 7th Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Jeong Sang-gyu) ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the wife and minor son of the deceased Mr. A, in a lawsuit against the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service seeking cancellation of the denial of survivor benefits and funeral expenses, stating, “The defendant’s decision to deny survivor benefits and funeral expenses to the plaintiffs is canceled.”

Mr. A (41 years old at the time of death), who worked as a deputy branch manager at a securities firm branch in Seoul, was responsible for sales tasks such as trading financial products and managing listed company clients. On October 12, 2020, he experienced dizziness and nausea at his officetel and was transported by 119 ambulance to a hospital due to convulsions, vomiting, and paralysis of the right limbs while sleeping.

A brain CT scan revealed a subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. He underwent emergency coil embolization and other procedures, showing some improvement, but began to develop a fever despite taking antipyretics a few days later and ultimately died on October 19, 2020.

The bereaved family claimed that Mr. A’s death was a “work-related injury caused by overwork and stress” and filed for survivor benefits and funeral expenses with the Service.

However, the Service rejected the claim based on the Seoul Occupational Disease Judgment Committee’s findings, which noted that ▲ the day before Mr. A’s initial hospital admission was a Sunday, a day off, ▲ the working hours in the 1, 4, and 12 weeks prior to onset did not meet the criteria recognizing a causal relationship between work and illness, ▲ no special changes in the work environment were identified, and ▲ Mr. A had a history of smoking, thus denying a substantial causal relationship between work and death.

In court, the bereaved family emphasized that due to the nature of securities firm work, there is always a possibility of complaints and reprimands from both clients and the company depending on trading performance. From January to June 2020, Mr. A received performance bonuses of about 1,200 to 1,500 KRW due to almost no trading results, but from July of the same year, trading volume surged, and he received performance bonuses of 1.64 million KRW in July, 2.82 million KRW in August, 4.58 million KRW in September, and 3.99 million KRW in October, showing a significant increase in workload during the four months before his death. They also argued that even after hospitalization for cerebral hemorrhage, Mr. A continued securities trading work by making phone calls and sending text messages to clients via his mobile phone until the second cerebral hemorrhage occurred, thus it should be considered a work-related injury.

However, the court-appointed medical expert, who reviewed Mr. A’s medical records, concluded that according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s announced criteria for recognizing overwork and stress in cerebrovascular or heart diseases, the workload or hours within one week before onset must have increased by more than 30% compared to the average weekly workload over the 12 weeks prior to onset (excluding the one week before onset). Mr. A’s case fell far short of this, and due to his smoking history, a causal relationship could not be recognized.

The Service calculated Mr. A’s working hours based on his employment contract, office computer power ON/OFF times, and public transportation commuting records, estimating an average of 32 hours and 4 minutes per week including a 4-hour business trip once a week in the one week before onset, 30 hours and 12 minutes on average over the four weeks before onset, and 32 hours and 12 minutes on average over the 12 weeks before onset.

However, the court’s judgment differed.

The court cited Supreme Court precedents stating that even if the main cause of a disease is not directly related to work performance, if work-related overwork or stress overlaps as a main cause and induces or worsens the disease, a causal relationship should be recognized.

Our Supreme Court holds that “the causal relationship between overwork and disease does not have to be medically or scientifically proven beyond doubt, and if considering all circumstances it is presumed that there is a substantial causal relationship between work and disease, it should be regarded as proven. This includes cases where pre-existing or underlying diseases that normally allow regular work rapidly worsen beyond the natural progression due to excessive workload.”

The court concluded, “It is reasonable to find that Mr. A’s work-related overwork and stress significantly influenced the occurrence or worsening of the cerebral hemorrhage caused by the rupture of the cerebral aneurysm, thus a substantial causal relationship between Mr. A’s work and death is recognized,” and “the Service’s decision based on a different premise is unlawful.”

The court acknowledged that the working hours calculated by the Service did not meet the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s overwork recognition criteria but judged that considering Mr. A’s role as deputy branch manager, who had to frequently handle work calls after hours, the Service’s calculation did not accurately reflect actual working hours.

Furthermore, the court cited a Supreme Court precedent stating, “The Ministry of Employment and Labor’s announcement is an administrative rule and does not have binding effect on the public or courts externally. The working hours criteria set in the announcement are only one factor in judging work-related overwork and cannot be an absolute standard,” adding, “Mr. A can be seen to have performed a considerable amount of work under severe mental stress before onset.”

Attorney Lim Dong-chae of the law firm I& S said, “In cases where death due to work-related reasons is an issue, the amount of ‘overtime work’ performed by the deceased worker is usually a key point. This case is noteworthy because it recognized a causal relationship between work and death despite acknowledging working hours below the statutory limit.”

Shin Hyun-ho, lead attorney representing the bereaved family from the law firm Haewool, pointed out, “The Service and medical experts tend to judge overwork mechanically based on quantifiable figures such as working hours. Since work-related diseases are mainly recognized for blue-collar workers, applying quantifiable criteria to mental laborers’ workload rarely recognizes overwork or stress.”

He added, “This case is a precedent recognizing that although working hours were much shorter than 40 to 52 hours, customer service outside official working hours was effectively conducted 24/7 throughout the year. It also serves as a brake against the Service’s tendency to attribute causal disconnection solely to smoking or drinking.”

Attorney Shin further noted, “Although medical experts are merely assistants to judges under procedural law, judges have tended to rely excessively on their opinions. This case is meaningful in that the court faithfully fulfilled its constitutional duty as a normative decision-maker by rejecting the medical expert’s purely scientific judgment and recognizing a normative causal relationship between overwork and death.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.