Is there a way to avoid imprisonment for industrial safety act violation?

Hello. This is the industrial safety specialist attorney at Daeryun Law Firm.

In cases of worker death accidents due to industrial safety act violation, as you mentioned, under Article 167 of the Industrial Safety and Health Act, imprisonment for up to 7 years or a fine of up to 100 million won is possible, and depending on the case, the Serious Disasters Punishment Act and occupational negligence resulting in death under the Criminal Act may also be issues, so the criminal risk is by no means light.

However, not all cases immediately result in imprisonment, and there are many cases where imprisonment was avoided through careful legal response in each case.

The factors that investigative agencies and courts focus on most when judging whether imprisonment is appropriate are the safety management system before the accident, the degree of fulfillment of the duty of care by the representative or manager, and the response attitude after the accident.

In other words, cases where the safety measures required by law are not implemented at all are evaluated with different weights of responsibility from cases where basic management systems were in place but some inadequate parts led to accidents.

In particular, in industrial safety and health act violation cases, the key issues are ① whether criminal responsibility is attributed to the representative individually ② how the responsibility distribution structure with the on-site management responsible person is ③ whether the accident was foreseeable and avoidable ④ whether the degree of occupational negligence corresponds to "gross negligence".

The conclusion among imprisonment, suspended sentence, and fine sentence is divided depending on this part.

Even after the accident has occurred, it is very important to comprehensively explain the objective analysis of accident causes, organization of existing safety education and inspection materials, implementation of post-recurrence prevention measures, and responsible measures for bereaved families.

These materials must be legally structured and explained in a direction that limits criminal responsibility to be recognized as actual mitigation reasons.

Since the nature of the case itself can change depending on the initial statement and investigation response direction in industrial safety act violation cases, receiving the assistance of an attorney who understands both the Industrial Safety and Health Act and criminal practice from the investigation stage plays a decisive role in lowering the possibility of imprisonment.

Please be aware that strategies to avoid imprisonment are not made after the fact but must be designed from this stage now.

Our firm has industrial safety specialist attorneys, criminal specialist attorneys, and other related legal experts who prepare strategies suitable for the client's case to respond.

If you need help, we recommend consulting now.