[Order]
The judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
[Reasoning]
The Court examines the grounds for appeal submitted by the Defendant's litigation representative.
According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the lower court found as follows: Article 32, Item 1 of the Defendant company's employment rules (취업규칙) provides that an employee shall be subject to disciplinary dismissal if it is discovered that the employee was hired by deceiving the company as to important matters in the employee's personal history, such as name, age, career, and educational background, at the time of joining the company, and that the Plaintiff, having agreed to this, entered into an employment contract with the Defendant company upon joining, under which the Plaintiff agreed not to object to the Defendant company's policy if there were falsehoods in the matters stated in the resume and other documents submitted at the time of joining; that although the Plaintiff had not actually worked at the non-party Seogwang Sangup from August 20, 1979 to December 30, 1980, prior to joining the Defendant company on October 1, 1981, the Plaintiff falsely stated in the career section of the resume submitted upon joining the Defendant company that he had worked there as described; that on this ground, the Defendant disciplinarily dismissed the Plaintiff pursuant to the provisions of the above employment rules; that in fact, prior to joining the Defendant company, the Plaintiff had worked as a sewing worker at the Bupyeong factory of Bando Sangsa Co., Ltd. from September 1, 1973 to February 21, 1981, and was a skilled worker in that field, but since it was widely known in the community that the Bupyeong factory of Bando Sangsa Co., Ltd. had eventually been closed in connection with a labor-management dispute, the Plaintiff, out of concern that he might not be hired by the Defendant company if it were known that he had worked at that factory, was compelled, in order to obtain employment, to falsely state in his resume that he had worked at Seogwang Sangup, where in fact he had never worked, and thereby came to be employed as a sewing worker at the Defendant company; that after joining the Defendant company, the Plaintiff did not receive any special treatment on account of his purported career at Seogwang Sangup, but worked diligently after joining, and was recognized as a skilled worker with better skills than others and exemplary in various respects, and was selected to serve as a subcontract factory inspection officer for the Defendant company; that in the course of the background check conducted for this purpose, it was revealed that the Plaintiff had in fact worked at the Bupyeong factory of Bando Sangsa Co., Ltd. as stated above, and had never worked at Seogwang Sangup; and that the Defendant company disciplinarily dismissed the Plaintiff on the ground that he had falsely stated his career in the resume.
Having found the above facts, the lower court determined as follows: in a case where a worker falsely represents his career in concluding an employment contract, in order to dismiss the worker on that ground, it must be limited to a case where the false career representation concerns a matter of such importance that, in light of the employment contract, it would be socially reasonable to recognize a causal relationship such that the employer would not have hired the worker had the false career not been represented; that the career of a sewing technician such as the Plaintiff is of importance not so much in terms of which workplace the worker was employed at, but rather in terms of the degree of skill and length of service; and that although the Plaintiff, who had worked as a sewing worker for as long as seven years at the Bupyeong factory of Bando Sangsa Co., Ltd., stated in his resume that he had worked at Seogwang Sangup for only about one year and four months, thereby rather shortening his stated period of service, this cannot be deemed to constitute deception as to an important matter in his personal history as prescribed as a ground for disciplinary dismissal in the Defendant company's employment rules; and therefore, the Defendant company's disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiff cannot be deemed justified, and accordingly the dismissal by the Defendant of the Plaintiff is null and void as violating Article 27 of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법).
However, in modern enterprises, the reason an employer requires a resume stating an employee's career, among other things, when hiring a worker, is not only to use it as investigative material for evaluating the worker's labor capacity, such as skills and experience, but also to use it as material for assessing personal character, such as the worker's stability of attachment to the workplace, adaptability to corporate order and corporate norms, and other forms of cooperativeness, thereby aiming to establish a relationship of trust between labor and management and to maintain and stabilize corporate order. Therefore, regardless of which of these two purposes is implicated by the worker's concealment or misrepresentation of career in the resume, if such misrepresentation affects the employer's relationship of trust with the worker or the maintenance of corporate order, and if, had the misrepresentation of prior career been discovered in advance, the employer would not have entered into the employment contract, or would at least not have entered into the contract on the same terms, then such misrepresentation must be regarded as constituting a ground for the worker's disciplinary dismissal. Article 32, Item 1 of the Defendant company's employment rules and the contents of the employment contract between the Plaintiff and Defendant in this case must also be interpreted in accordance with the foregoing purport.
However, when the Plaintiff entered into the employment contract of the aforementioned purport with the Defendant company on January 12, 1982 and submitted his resume, he concealed, in the career section thereof, his career of having worked at the Bupyeong factory of Bando Sangsa Co., Ltd., and misrepresented that he had worked at Seogwang Sangup, where he had never in fact worked; and as also found by the lower court, this misrepresentation of career was made out of concern that he might not be hired by the Defendant company if it became known that he had worked at the Bupyeong factory of Bando Sangsa Co., Ltd., which had been closed in connection with a labor-management dispute. Considering that the Defendant company came to know of the Plaintiff's aforementioned misrepresentation of career in the course of a background investigation of the Plaintiff after his employment, and thereupon proceeded to this disciplinary dismissal, it is clear that the Defendant company would not have hired the Plaintiff had it known in advance, from the Plaintiff's resume, of such misrepresentation of career. Accordingly, the Plaintiff's misrepresentation in his resume constitutes a misrepresentation of an important career matter capable of misleading the Defendant's assessment of the Plaintiff's character, and thus falls under a ground for disciplinary dismissal. Nevertheless, the lower court, misapprehending the legal principles concerning misrepresentation of career, hastily concluded that a ground for dismissal due to misrepresentation of career is limited to a case where it causes the employer to err in evaluating the worker's labor capacity, such as skills and experience, and thereby determined that the Plaintiff's misrepresentation of career in this case did not cause the Defendant to err in evaluating the Plaintiff's labor capacity, and accordingly did not constitute a ground for the Plaintiff's disciplinary dismissal. The argument pointing out this error is well-founded.
Therefore, the judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court, and this judgment is rendered in accordance with the unanimous opinion of the Justices participating, as stated in the Order.
Justice Shin Jeong-cheol (Presiding Justice), Jeong Tae-gyun, Lee Jeong-woo, Kim Hyeong-gi