The Supreme Court ruled that a daycare center director is also responsible if a child has an accident while wandering alone when the mother visits to consult about enrolling the child.
The Supreme Court's Second Division (presiding Justice Eom Sang-pil) on the 16th of last month overturned the lower court that acquitted daycare director A, who was indicted on charges of occupational negligence resulting in injury, and sent the case back to the Daejeon District Court with instructions to convict.
A ran a daycare center in Gyeryong, South Chungcheong Province. Mother B visited the daycare center with her son, C, then 1 year old at the time of the accident, to consult about enrollment. During the consultation, C repeatedly tried to leave the director's office, and B restrained her son.
A then said, "The daycare is safe, and there are teachers outside, so let the child freely explore the daycare." A then took C out of the director's office and, after vaguely telling the teachers who were holding class in the living room, "Please keep an eye on the child," returned to the director's office.
C wandered alone inside the daycare for 25 minutes, entered a kitchen whose door was unlocked, and fell near a pot on the floor containing hot yukgaejang. As a result, from the buttocks down the child's body fell into the pot and suffered burns.
Prosecutors indicted three people on charges of occupational negligence resulting in injury: A; the daycare cook who left a pot with its lid open on the kitchen floor; and a childcare teacher who left the kitchen after attending to work there without locking the door.
They found that A, as the daycare director, had a duty of care at work to do everything possible to prevent risks to infants and toddlers but left the child with unspecified childcare teachers without designating a particular teacher to look after B's son.
The first trial found the three, including A, guilty. The cook and the childcare teacher were each sentenced at first instance to six months in prison, suspended for one year, and, because they did not appeal, the sentences were finalized.
The appeals court acquitted A. The appellate panel said, "It cannot be recognized that there was a duty of care at work to designate and assign a childcare teacher in advance for a child victim whose daycare enrollment process had not been completed."
By contrast, the Supreme Court said, "Although the child victim had not enrolled at the daycare, A separated the child from the guardian and took over custody," adding, "The child victim must be regarded as having become a subject of protection at this daycare."
The Supreme Court also said, "A had a duty of care at work to ensure that protection and supervision could be carried out realistically and effectively—such as by designating and assigning a specific childcare teacher—when sending the child victim, who was only 1 year old, into the daycare's living room," finding that A violated that duty of care.