Complete Acquittal in First Instance Trial for Violation of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act

Lee & Ko successfully defended Company A, a major corporate group affiliate, in a case involving the death of a subcontractor’s worker at a coal unloading facility. On March 6, 2025, the court rendered a not guilty verdict for all defendants – Company A, its CEO, and the plant manager – who had been indicted for violations of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

This marks the first acquittal in a Serious Accidents Punishment Act case involving a major corporate group.

On December 20, 2022, at the coal unloading facility operated by Company A, a dump truck loaded with coal overturned while unloading. The truck, which belonged to a transportation subcontractor, was raised without opening the rear gate of the bed, causing it to tip over. As a result, a worker from another subcontractor who was present at the scene was crushed by the coal and the vehicle and tragically lost his life.

The court held that there was no causal relationship between the fatal accident and any breach of the duty to protect workers from falling object hazards or the alleged failure to establish a safety and health management system under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. The judgment clarified that the Serious Accidents Punishment Act does not intend to impose strict liability on business owners or management-level personnel. It emphasized that, where the accident clearly resulted from the operational error of the dump truck driver, it would be unjust to impose excessive criminal liability on the Company’s CEO or management.

In the absence of established case law regarding causation under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act at the time, Lee & Ko conducted a thorough analysis of the cause of the accident and objectively demonstrated how the incident occurred. By persuasively arguing that a causal link between a breach of occupational safety and health obligations and the resulting accident is essential, Lee & Ko secured a not guilty verdict.

This decision is expected to serve as a key precedent for determining causation in ongoing and future cases involving workplace fatalities under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act.