[Plaintiff, Appellee] Dongwon Coal Mine Development Co., Ltd., Attorney Park Se-gyeong
[Defendant, Appellant] Chief of the Seoul Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Office
[Original Judgment] Seoul High Court Decision 69Gu125, rendered March 26, 1974
[Order]
The original judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
[Reasoning]
The Court examines the grounds of appeal submitted by the Defendant's litigation representative, taken together.
According to the reasoning of the original judgment, the court below determined as follows: the Plaintiff company operates a coal mining business and has a mine site in Jeongseon-gun, Gangwon-do, and its head office, which oversees the overall business, is located in Seoul, separate from the mine site—being merely incidental and necessary to the Plaintiff's own coal mining operations—and is, moreover, organizationally independent from the mine site. Therefore, under the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (산업재해보상보험법), the head office must be regarded as a business independent from the mine site, and the two cannot be considered the same type of business. Accordingly, the insurance premium rate applicable to the mine site and the insurance premium rate applicable to the head office must be treated as separate matters, and the premium rate applicable to the mine site cannot automatically and uniformly apply to the head office, which handles only general administrative affairs. The court below further determined that, for the years 1967 and 1968, although there was a public notice of the insurance premium rate for coal mining, there was no public notice of the insurance premium rate for offices; such a notice did not come into effect until 1969. Therefore, for 1967 and 1968, while the Plaintiff had an abstract obligation to pay insurance premiums with respect to the head office, it was impossible to calculate the specific premium amount, and thus there was no means of payment. The court below concluded that, in the end, for those two years, the Plaintiff had no obligation to pay insurance premiums with respect to the head office.
However, insofar as it is recognized that the Plaintiff company, as the business owner of a business subject to the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법), is an insured person under the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, the insurance premium that the Plaintiff company must pay should be calculated by taking the Plaintiff company as the unit, based on the total amount of wages paid at both the mine site and the head office, and applying to this total the insurance premium rate prescribed for coal mining, which is the type of business conducted by the Plaintiff company.
This is because, even though the head office and the mine site are separated in terms of location, both merely each undertake a portion of the Plaintiff company's business of coal mining, and thus cannot be regarded as separate places of business.
If so, then for the years 1967 and 1968—prior to Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Public Notice No. 28 of December 13, 1968, which separately prescribed insurance premium rates for the head office, branch offices, and business offices—the Plaintiff company should have calculated the insurance premium payable by it according to the coal mining insurance premium rate prescribed in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs public notice then in effect, without distinguishing between the head office and the mine site. Nevertheless, the court below made the determination described above, which constitutes an error in the misapplication of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act. Accordingly, the argument on this point is well-founded, and, by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices, the original judgment is reversed and the case is remanded, as set forth in the Order.
Justices Hong Sun-yeop (Presiding Justice), Min Mun-gi, Im Hang-jun, An Byeong-su