[Plaintiffs, Appellants] Plaintiff 1 and 1 other (Attorney-at-law Lee Deok-woo, Chang-jo Law Firm, for the Plaintiffs)
[Defendant, Appellee] Asia Cement Co., Ltd. (Attorney Lee Won-seop, for the Defendant)
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 2001Na61861 rendered on September 26, 2002
[Order]
All appeals are dismissed. The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the Plaintiffs.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal are examined.
Where an employer terminates an employment relationship in the form of an employee-initiated resignation (uiwon myeonjik) by receiving and accepting a letter of resignation from the employee, if the employer compelled an employee who had no intention to resign to write and submit a letter of resignation against his or her will, this in substance constitutes termination of the employment relationship by the unilateral intent of the employer, and thus amounts to a dismissal. However, where this is not the case, the employment relationship between the employer and the employee is terminated by mutual agreement, since the employer accepted the employee's declaration of intent to resign upon submission of the letter of resignation; therefore, the employer's disposition of accepting the resignation cannot be regarded as a dismissal (see Supreme Court Decision 2000Da51919, 51926, decided January 19, 2001).
According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the court below, upon comprehensively considering the evidence it adopted, found the facts as stated in its reasoning, and then held as follows: the Defendant Company, after prior consultation with the labor union, decided to implement a voluntary retirement program under which employees who voluntarily retired would be given preferential terms regarding severance pay and other conditions; the Defendant Company then asked the Plaintiffs whether they wished to retire voluntarily, and issued the dismissal disposition based on the Plaintiffs' explicit intention to retire; in that process, it appears that the Defendant Company merely actively recommended voluntary retirement to the Plaintiffs, who were highly likely to be included among those subject to redundancy dismissal (jeongli haego) in light of the age and years of service criteria and other redundancy criteria that would have applied had the voluntary retirement program failed and redundancy dismissals been implemented instead. In light of these circumstances, among others, it is difficult to find that the Plaintiffs submitted their letters of resignation unavoidably, out of fear induced by coercion on the part of the Defendant Company, despite having no intention to resign. Rather, even if the Plaintiffs could not readily accept the recommendation of voluntary retirement at the time, it is reasonable to view that the Plaintiffs submitted their letters of resignation after deep deliberation, comprehensively considering all relevant circumstances, including the economic situation at the time, the Defendant Company's restructuring plan, the conditions for voluntary retirement offered by the Defendant Company, the likelihood of being included among those subject to redundancy dismissal under the redundancy criteria if redundancy dismissals were implemented, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of retiring versus continuing to work. Accordingly, the employment contracts between the Plaintiffs and the Defendant Company were terminated by mutual agreement, in that the Plaintiffs submitted their letters of resignation to the Defendant Company and the Defendant Company accepted them and dismissed the Plaintiffs. Since the Plaintiffs' retirement in this case cannot be regarded as substantively constituting a redundancy dismissal, whether the substantive requirements for redundancy dismissal asserted by the Plaintiffs were satisfied cannot affect the validity of the mutual agreement to terminate the employment contracts between the Plaintiffs and the Defendant Company. On these grounds, the court below dismissed all of the Plaintiffs' claims in this case.
Examining the relevant evidence in light of the legal principles set forth above and the record, the fact-finding and determination of the court below as stated above are deemed justified, and there is no illegality therein, such as misapprehension of facts due to a violation of the rules of evidence or misunderstanding of the legal principles concerning redundancy dismissal, as alleged in the grounds of appeal.
Therefore, all appeals are dismissed, and the costs of the appeal are to be borne by the losing parties. This Judgment is rendered as stated in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Justice Kang Sin-uk (Presiding Justice), Byun Jae-seung (Justice in charge), Yoon Jae-sik, Ko Hyun-cheol