The court recognized the work-related accident of a delivery driver who died in a traffic accident while going to pick up food. The driver violated a traffic signal, but the court considered that the driver might not have properly recognized the signal due to overwork.
According to the legal community on the 23rd, the Administrative Division 8 of the Seoul Administrative Court, presided over by Director General Lee Jung-hee, ruled in favor of the bereaved family of delivery driver A in a lawsuit against the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service (KWCWS), requesting to cancel the denial of survivor's benefits and funeral expense payment. The ruling was finalized as the KWCWS did not appeal.
Driver A was driving a motorcycle to pick up food from a restaurant in September 2023 when he ignored a traffic signal and went straight, colliding with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction and dying.
The bereaved family of A claimed that the accident was work-related and requested survivor's benefits and funeral expenses from the KWCWS. However, the KWCWS denied the payment. Article 37 Paragraph 2 of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act states that an employee's criminal act or an accident caused by it cannot be considered a work-related injury. The KWCWS stated that since A violated the traffic signal and caused the accident, it does not fall under work-related injuries. The bereaved family of A contested the KWCWS decision and filed a lawsuit last year.
The court judged that A might not have properly recognized the traffic signal due to accumulated fatigue from overwork. The court noted, 'Assuming that A completed 32 delivery tasks on the day of the accident and worked an average of 8 hours a day, he made at least 4 deliveries per hour,' and added, 'It is highly likely that the accident occurred due to a violation of the traffic signal in a moment of reduced concentration.'
Furthermore, it stated, 'While the weather was clear at the time of the accident and the surrounding roads were flat paved roads, there were more than two vehicles stopped in the first lane of the direction A was heading,' and the court mentioned, 'These vehicles could have acted as visual obstacles, causing A to momentarily fail to recognize the advancing accident vehicle.'