[Plaintiff, Appellee] Plaintiff, Attorney Lee Hae-woo, Litigation Representative
[Defendant, Appellant] Yuwon Construction Co., Ltd., Attorneys Kim Jin-woo and 1 other, Litigation Representatives
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 89Na12614 rendered on November 10, 1989
[Order]
The part of the judgment below concerning the claims for overtime work allowance and retirement allowance is reversed, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
The remainder of the Defendant's appeal is dismissed.
The costs of appeal with respect to the dismissed portion of the appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal are examined.
According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the lower court rejected the Defendant's argument as follows. The Defendant argued that the site in Saudi Arabia where the Plaintiff worked was such that, due to extreme heat and frequent sandstorm phenomena, it was not easy to work the same hours every day; that work was performed by appropriately repeating work and rest periods in accordance with the daily weather conditions, the supply and demand of materials and equipment, and other site construction conditions; that particularly in the case of management staff such as the Plaintiff, it was difficult to clearly divide working hours and rest hours in advance and to implement such a division, and it was also difficult to accurately confirm whether work had actually been performed and the hours of such work; that accordingly, instead of individually calculating and paying allowances for overtime work, etc. to workers such as the Plaintiff, the Defendant company, in consideration of the above particular nature of the form of work, treated the workers as having performed 2 hours of overtime work every day and 288 hours (208 + 80) of holiday work every year regardless of whether work was actually performed and the actual working hours, and calculated and paid, under the name of overtime work allowance, etc., ordinary wages corresponding to 102 hours per month, calculated uniformly by rank and pay grade, as part of the basic allowance; that the Plaintiff, well aware of this, desired to work overseas, went abroad, and received monthly salary calculated on this basis, thereby consenting to the above policy of paying overtime work allowance, etc.; that therefore the Plaintiff's above claim seeking payment of allowance in accordance with actual overtime working hours, contrary to the above, was unjustified; and that at the very least, the amount paid in the name of overtime work allowance as alleged above should be deducted to that extent.
In response to this argument, the lower court held, based on the provisions of Articles 22 and 46 through 48, etc. of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법), that an employer must, at the time of concluding an employment contract, clearly specify to the worker the wages, working hours, and other working conditions, and that, as a matter of principle, wages must be paid by calculating and adding together, in addition to the basic wage, various allowances arising from overtime work, night work, holiday work, etc.; that although, exceptionally, a contract may be concluded providing for the payment of a fixed amount each month as various allowances with the worker's consent, taking into account working hours, the form of work, the nature of the duties, etc., such a contract cannot be held invalid where it does not disadvantage the worker and is recognized as reasonable in light of all the circumstances; however, that with respect to the point that the Defendant company treated workers such as the Plaintiff as performing 2 hours of overtime work each day and paid a fixed amount determined uniformly by rank and pay grade in the name of overtime work allowance, the entries in Defendant's Exhibits No. 1-1, 2, 3, No. 2, and No. 6-5, 6, 7, 9, 12, and the testimony of the witness at the lower court and the first instance, which correspond to this point, were difficult to believe in light of the overall purport of the pleadings, particularly the fact that the entries in Defendant's Exhibits No. 1-1, 2, 3 (each Middle East salary tables) do not correspond with the entries in Defendant's Exhibit No. 2 (salary composition details), and that there was no other evidence sufficient to recognize this; that furthermore, even taking into account the particular nature of the form of work of workers such as the Plaintiff, the above agreement could not be said to be non-disadvantageous to workers such as the Plaintiff, nor could it be said to be reasonable in light of other circumstances; and that the fact that the Plaintiff desired to work overseas while knowing of the Defendant company's above salary policy could not be conclusively taken to mean that the Plaintiff consented to the non-payment of overtime work allowance, etc. under the Labor Standards Act, and there was no other evidence to find that workers such as the Plaintiff consented to the agreement concerning the payment of various allowances as alleged by the Defendant; therefore, the lower court rejected the Defendant's above argument as being without merit.
However, even where a contract is concluded providing for the payment of a fixed amount each month as various allowances—which should otherwise be paid according to actual work performance, such as overtime, night work, and holiday allowances—taking into account working hours, the form of work, the nature of the duties, etc., for convenience of calculation and to encourage employees' motivation to work, such a contract cannot be held invalid where it does not disadvantage the worker and is recognized as reasonable in light of all the circumstances (see this Court's Decision 89Daka15939 rendered on November 27, 1990). According to the entries in Plaintiff's Exhibits No. 17-1 through 16 (each pay statement) and No. 20 (management staff pay statement), which the lower court did not reject, the Defendant company pays remuneration in the form of monthly salary to management staff working overseas, the contents of which are divided into base pay, basic allowance, other allowances, monthly leave allowance, and bonus. Meanwhile, according to the entries in Defendant's Exhibits No. 6-5, 9 (each statement record), whose authenticity is not disputed, the Defendant company has established Overseas Salary Regulations as the remuneration regulations applicable to workers working overseas, and pursuant to those salary regulations, has paid a fixed amount each month as overtime work allowance. Likewise, according to the entries in the above Defendant's Exhibits No. 1-1, 2, 3, and No. 2, whose authenticity is not disputed, the amounts of each of the above items are specifically set by rank and pay grade for management staff working in the Middle East region, and among these, the above basic allowance is stated as including a fixed amount of overtime work allowance; and it appears that the salary composition details for management staff working in the Middle East region consist of 31.2% base pay, and, within the basic allowance, 5.48% duty allowance, 27.73% overseas work allowance, 32.37% overtime allowance, and 3.22% monthly leave allowance (although there is a slight discrepancy in calculation between the above composition ratios and the ratio of the specific amounts actually agreed to be paid). If this is the case, then it should have been examined: what exactly constitutes the details of the basic allowance or other allowances that the Defendant company has paid to management staff working overseas; if the portion constituting the basic allowance coincides with the sum of the duty allowance, overseas work allowance, and overtime allowance appearing in the Middle East salary table in Defendant's Exhibits No. 1-1, 2, 3, then what is the basis and circumstances by which the above Middle East salary table or the salary composition details in Defendant's Exhibit No. 2 came to be prepared; what difference exists between the above basic allowance and the allowance of management staff of the same rank and same pay grade working domestically; and whether, in light of the work content and working hours expected of workers in the case of overseas assignment and the Defendant company's remuneration system, it is reasonable to view the above basic allowance as including overtime work allowance. If it is found that the overtime work allowance alleged by the Defendant is included in the above basic allowance, then that overtime work allowance should be excluded from ordinary wages, and the actual overtime working hours worked by the Plaintiff each month should be examined; if such hours fall short of the hours prescribed in the above regulations, it need not be taken into account on the ground that the Defendant company paid more as a matter of grace, but if such hours exceed the prescribed hours, the overtime work allowance should be calculated only with respect to the excess portion.
Nevertheless, without proceeding to examine the above points, the lower court merely rejected the above Defendant's Exhibits No. 1-1, 2, 3 and No. 2 on the ground that they do not correspond with each other, calculated ordinary wages including the overtime work allowance already paid, calculated the unpaid overtime work allowance on this basis, and then took this unpaid overtime work allowance into account in calculating the average wage for the purpose of calculating retirement allowance, thereby calculating the retirement allowance. Accordingly, the part of the judgment below concerning overtime work allowance and retirement allowance is ultimately unlawful in that it violated the rules of evidence and failed to exhaust the examination, thereby affecting the outcome of the judgment. The argument pointing this out therefore has merit. As for the remaining points of the judgment below, since there is no statement of grounds of appeal with respect thereto in the petition of appeal or the brief of grounds of appeal, this part of the appeal cannot avoid dismissal.
Therefore, the part of the judgment below concerning overtime work allowance and retirement allowance is reversed, and this part of the case is remanded to the court below; the remainder of the Plaintiff's appeal is dismissed; and the costs of appeal with respect to the dismissed portion shall be borne by the losing party. It is so decided as stated in the Order, by the unanimous opinion of the Justices participating.
Justice Choi Jae-ho (Presiding Justice), Yoon Kwan, Kim Ju-han, Kim Yong-jun