"5 Million Won Per Person" Victims of 'Test Paper Shredding' File Group Compensation Lawsuit

Lawsuit Filed Against Korea Industrial Human Resources Corporation for Compensation of 735 Million KRW
Assigned to Civil Division 11 at Seoul Western District Court

The incident of shredding answer sheets before grading the national technical qualification exam has escalated into a collective damages lawsuit. The victims reportedly filed a complaint against the Korea Industrial Manpower Corporation, demanding compensation of 5 million KRW per person for material and psychological damages.

According to the legal community on the 9th, 147 victims of the exam paper shredding incident filed a lawsuit at the Seoul Central District Court on the 1st of last month, demanding a total compensation of 735 million KRW, 5 million KRW per person. Considering jurisdiction and other factors, the case was transferred and assigned to the Civil Division 11 of the Seoul Western District Court (Presiding Judge Park Tae-il).

Eo Subong, President of the Human Resources Development Service of Korea (fourth from the left), and employees are bowing their heads in apology on the morning of the 23rd at the Government Complex Sejong in Sejong City regarding the answer sheet shredding incident during the "2023 Regular Engineer and Industrial Engineer 1st Practical Exam" held on May 23 at Yeonsu Middle School in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul.

The incident began when answer sheets for 61 categories and 609 examinees were mistakenly omitted and shredded during the first practical exam of the regular technical engineer test held on April 23 at Yeonseo Middle School in Seoul. Among the answer sheets that were supposed to be transported to the Korea Industrial Manpower Corporation’s Seoul Western Branch, one bundle of answer sheets from Yeonseo Middle School was mistakenly omitted and shredded before grading. The corporation’s headquarters, unaware of this during the handover process, only realized the disappearance of 609 answer sheets during grading, and additionally confirmed the loss of four more answer sheets from the same testing site.

The Korea Industrial Manpower Corporation offered the affected examinees a chance to retake the exam and announced a compensation plan to pay 100,000 KRW per person at the end of last month. The compensation fund was secured by employees voluntarily returning part of their salaries.

However, as the victims judged this compensation insufficient, they initiated a collective damages lawsuit, leading to a legal dispute.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has launched a special audit to investigate the cause of the incident and identify those responsible, as well as a separate audit to review the overall management of national certification exams. At the time, Director Oh Soo-bong resigned on the 1st of last month, taking responsibility for the incident. The corporation has formed an internal National Qualification Operation Innovation Task Force and entered an emergency management system.

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