How Japanese Legal System handles Karoshi Cases

This is an abridged translation of the article written in Japanese by Haruki Konno, Director of Posse. The original article can be accessed here (https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/konnoharuki/20201121-00208884/).

The very first law to admit the need for the government to implement measures to prevent karoshi and overwork, Act Promoting Measures to Prevent Death and Injury from Overwork was passed in 2014 with efforts from the families who have lost their loved ones to karoshi and karojisatsu continuously demanding the state to take this matter seriously. However, six years after the law was passed, karoshi and overwork is still seen in numerous workplaces and statistics suggest the situation may even be worsened with the increase in workers suffering mental illnesses from various workplace issues such as overwork and harassment.

In the most recent whitepaper on karoshi, in 2019, 86 deaths from brain and/or heart illnesses were recognized by the government as workplace related, meaning the victims’ families are eligible to receive compensation from the government in the form of the workplace injury compensation insurance benefits. Also, the government admitted 88 cases of suicide or attempted suicide (karojisatsu) were caused by mental illnesses that were workplace related.

It is obvious that these figures are simply the tip of the iceberg. But the question here is, “what happened to the families of the approximately 200 karoshi/karojisatsu cases?” The compensation from the government only covers a part of the lost income and even when the family receives the compensation, the former employer is not legally obligated to apologize or offer additional compensation to the family unless the case is brought to court. In such civil cases where the family sues the former employer, the court often decides against the family for various reasons, essentially acquitting the former employer.

We can take a look at the Sansei case. A 51 year old male worker passed away in 2011 from a brain hemorrhage which was later deemed work related by the local labor standards office. His overtime for the month before his death was 85 hours 48 minutes and it was 111 hours 9 minutes for two months before his death. Those numbers are well above the karoshi threshold, which the government uses to determine whether a death is work-related or not, of 80 hours of overtime in a month. It was clear to the victim’s family that he was essentially killed by the company.

A manufacturing company based in Oshu, Iwate, Sansei failed to acknowledge the death as work-related, even providing a statement to the labor standards office in charge of the investigation that the company does not believe it has any issues with the workplace and that the brain hemorrhage was from his preexisting conditions such as high blood pressure and age. All it did was to offer a 500,000 yen severance pay and never offered an apology to the family. The family, with assistance from friends, filed for workplace injury compensation. After checking his timesheets and daily reports the company kept, Hanamaki Labor Standards Office decided in July 2012 that he was under heavy workload and pressure including an average of 98 hours of overtime for the two months before the death and that his death should be considered karoshi.

The family decided, with assistance from Posse, labor NGO in Tokyo helping karoshi victims’ families, to sue the company and its board members for approximately 65,000,000 Yen in damages. The board members were included since the company had already filed for dissolution in 2012 and it was not possible for the family to receive any compensation from a company which no longer existed.

In the court session, the company had repeatedly claimed that the death was caused by his preexisting health conditions such as high blood pressure and “eating unhealthy”. It also claimed that even if there was overwork, it tried to prevent karoshi from happening by letting other employees conduct tasks he was assigned to do and considering hiring more employees (which the company itself admits it was not able to do). It stated that the board members as individuals were never able to get a grasp on his overwork thus should not be held accountable.

It was clear that since the timesheets the company provided to the labor standards office showed he was indeed working longer than the karoshi threshold, the company acknowledged (or it had a chance to acknowledge) that he was working to the point where there was a chance of karoshi. On top of that, one of the board members, the plant manager, was working in the room next to where the victim was working in, sometimes working together on same tasks. It seems it was certainly possible for at least the plant manager to expect the worst.

However, Yokohama District Court decided on March 2020 that the family is not legally entitled to receive any compensation. To be precise, the court decided the company itself was responsible for the loss but none of the board members were, which meant the family would receive no compensation since the company had already went dissolution. The court refused to hold the individual board members accountable since the plant manager was “asking other employees to work with him”, the company “tried to make his job more efficient by implementing a software which automatically produces quotes”, and Sansei “did alleviate his workload from 111 hours 9 minutes in two months before his death to 85 hours 48 minutes a month before his death.” The judges basically claimed that even if Sansei failed to reduce his workload under the karoshi threshold, it tried to prevent karoshi which was all it needed to do to keep a safe working place.

It should be noted that whatever measures the company claims it tried were never actually implemented. It did not hire more employees to alleviate his workload. If all employers need to do is to try to reduce overwork, they can essentially order employees to work as long as they feel necessary and claim later that they had tried to prevent karoshi by listing measures which might or might not be actually implemented.

In addition, the district court decided that even if the family had the right to receive compensation from the company, it should be reduced by 70 percent since the victim had high blood pressure. The court determined the company only held 30 percent of responsibility for the death. It is clear that the judicial system is not keen on doing its job to keep karoshi from happening. The family appealed the decision and Tokyo High Court will have its decision will be delivered in January 2021.

It should be quite outrageous to find out how the judicial system handles karoshi cases. However, most karoshi cases are not even brought to court. In 2019, there were 936 applications for workplace injury compensation and only 216 cases (including 86 death cases) were considered workplace related by the government (23 percent acceptance rate). Many cases go unrecognized because the families of victims were either unable to collect evidence to show overwork or harassment, or the companies after their deaths disposes evidence which makes investigation impossible. For the families of karoshi victims to seek justice, we need stricter measures to keep employers accountable for forcing overwork.