Industrial Accident Fatality | Case Defending Against a Custodial Sentence Despite Three Charges Arising from an Industrial Accident Fatality

Due to the fatal industrial accident, the client was indicted on charges of occupational negligence causing death, violation of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act (industrial accident causing death), and violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

The relevant statutes are reviewed below.

▶🔗Occupational negligence causing death?

Occupational negligence causing death refers to the crime of causing death or injury to a person through occupational negligence.

As in this case, where a site supervisor or manager neglects industrial accident prevention measures and a fatal accident occurs, the person may be indicted for the criminal offense of occupational negligence causing death.

If occupational negligence causing death is found, the offender may be subject to imprisonment without labor for up to 5 years or a fine not exceeding 20 million won.

▶🔗Serious Accidents Punishment Act (industrial accident causing death)

This offense applies when a fatal accident occurs because safety obligations were not fulfilled at an industrial site.

Business owners and responsible managers who cause a serious accident by violating their duty to secure safety and health are subject to imprisonment for at least 1 year or a fine not exceeding 1 billion won.

▶Violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act

The 🔗Occupational Safety and Health Act provides that a business owner must take the measures necessary for the safety and health of workers.

This includes installing safety devices, conducting risk assessments, and providing training on work procedures, and neglecting these constitutes a violation of the Act subject to criminal punishment.

A person who violates a health obligation and causes the death of a worker may be subject to imprisonment for up to 7 years or a fine not exceeding 100 million won.

The industrial accident attorney emphasized that the driving and cleaning work of the mixer in this case was simple work with a low level of risk.

The attorney highlighted that, even though the condition of the outlet could be checked from the outside, the victim's putting his upper body inside the mixer to check it was an extremely unusual action, and was a method not found in the work standards or the manual.

The attorney argued that, even if there were inadequate aspects of the system, such as a safety switch, while the mixer was operating, it was in practice difficult to prevent and anticipate in advance every one of the victim's unexpected work methods.

The industrial accident attorney submitted detailed materials showing that the company had continuously conducted occupational safety and health education from before the accident and had established and implemented risk assessments related to the mixer cleaning work.

The attorney also presented as evidence the educational materials on the mixer operation procedures and the records of periodic safety inspections before the accident, proving that the company had not directed unreasonable work without ensuring safety.

The attorney also argued that, considering the relatively low level of risk inherent in the nature of mixer cleaning work, it was sufficiently difficult to foresee that a fatal accident could occur during cleaning work, as in this case.

The prosecution pointed to the fact that the cleaning work had not been carried out in two-person teams as gross negligence.

The industrial accident attorney emphasized the practical circumstances that cleaning work had been evaluated as repetitive and simple work with a markedly low level of danger, and that it was difficult to always maintain a two-person team deployment given the staffing conditions at the site.

Considering the scale of the company and its staffing circumstances, the attorney requested leniency, asserting that organizing every task into a two-person team could be an excessively burdensome measure in terms of site operation.