Even if the number of regular workers at the business site where a serious accident occurred is smaller than the threshold for the law to apply, the CEO should be punished based on the total number of the company's workers, the Supreme Court ruled.
The Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Kwon Young-jun) said on the 17th that on Jan. 29 it finalized a lower court ruling sentencing Ilkwang Polymer CEO Lee to three years in prison and the corporation to a fine of 500 million won for violating the Serious Accidents Punishment Act (industrial accident causing death), among other charges.
The Serious Accidents Punishment Act took effect on Jan. 27, 2022. At the time, business sites with 50 or more regular workers were subject to the law. After a two-year grace period, from Jan. 27, 2024, it was expanded to all business sites with five or more regular workers.
The accident occurred in Mar. 2022 at an electric vehicle parts factory in Seocheon, South Chungcheong. At the time, factory operations supervisor Cho told a worker in their 20s to put a conductor cleaned with ethanol, a flammable liquid, into a constant temperature and humidity chamber to dry. An explosion occurred during the work, and a 69-kilogram iron door blew off, causing a head injury that killed the worker.
In the first trial, CEO Lee was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for two years. In the second trial, the court said the culpability was heavy and sentenced Lee to three years in prison and took Lee into custody in court. Supervisor Cho was sentenced to one year in prison in the first trial, but in the second trial the sentence was reduced to one year in prison, suspended for three years.
The appellate court said, "Disasters occur due to overlapping causes, from basic system maintenance such as securing safety personnel and budgets to violations of on-site duties," adding, "Evaluating and managing the entirety of the risks is the responsibility of the management representative or the employer."
Lee contested the ruling, but the Supreme Court found no error in the judgment and dismissed the appeal.
In the final appeal, Lee argued that the number of regular workers at the business site where the accident occurred was fewer than 50, so the Serious Accidents Punishment Act did not apply. However, the Supreme Court held that even if individual units such as headquarters, branches, and factories are geographically separate, if personnel and labor management and finance and accounting are not operated independently and they are merely part of a "unit of economic and social activity that forms a managerial whole and operates organically," then when a serious industrial accident occurs at one of the individual units, absent other special circumstances, the total number of regular workers across the entire organization must be aggregated to determine whether the law applies.