[Plaintiff, Appellant]
[Defendant, Appellee] Chairman of the National Labor Relations Commission
[Intervenor for the Defendant] Korea Exchange Bank Co., Ltd. (Attorneys Oh Seong-hwan and 8 others, Counsel for the Intervenor)
[Judgment Below]
Seoul High Court Decision 94Gu12656 dated October 6, 1995
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed. The costs of appeal shall be borne by the Plaintiff.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal are examined.
According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the lower court found the following facts: the Plaintiff was hired as an employee of the Intervenor for the Defendant (hereinafter "the Intervenor") on November 16, 1967, and worked as the branch manager of the Intervenor's ○○ Branch from July 23, 1991 to January 11, 1993. Around the end of July 1992, the total amount of credit extended to Nonparty 1 Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Nonparty 1 Company") by the said branch reached KRW 1,514,000,000, while the value of the collateral provided by Nonparty 1 Company was only KRW 956,000,000, and the Plaintiff was instructed by the Intervenor to recover the loan extended to Nonparty 1 Company. Nonparty 2, the substantial owner of Nonparty 1 Company, told the Plaintiff that if the overdue loan of KRW 350,000,000 owed by Nonparty 1 Company to the Intervenor were repaid, the Industrial Bank of Korea was arranged to newly extend a loan of KRW 1,000,000,000 to Nonparty 1 Company, and proposed that the Plaintiff first borrow KRW 350,000,000 in his own name from Nonparty Park Rae-sik, a private moneylender, to repay the overdue loan owed by Nonparty 1 Company to the Intervenor, and later settle the matter with the loan proceeds from the Industrial Bank of Korea. Accordingly, as a means of recovering the loan extended to Nonparty 1 Company, the Plaintiff borrowed KRW 350,000,000 from the said Park Rae-sik on August 14, 1992 (this portion was repaid by Nonparty 2 on August 25, 1992), and KRW 300,000,000 on August 26 of the same year, thereby partially recovering the loan. When Park Rae-sik pressed the Plaintiff for repayment of the said KRW 300,000,000, the Plaintiff borrowed KRW 250,000,000 from Nonparty Choi Byeong-seol and repaid part of the principal and interest owed to Park Rae-sik. Thereafter, when Nonparty 2 obtained a loan of KRW 620,000,000 from the Industrial Bank of Korea on October 2, 1992 but fled without repaying the debt owed to Choi Byeong-seol and others, the Plaintiff, pressed by Choi Byeong-seol for repayment of the said debt, on four occasions from December 4 to December 31, 1992, photocopied the front side of a safekeeping deposit certificate—which, under the Intervenor's Detailed Rules on Safekeeping Deposit Business, is to be issued and delivered as a document certifying that the bank has received custody of a customer's securities or valuables—and thereafter wrote thereon a statement to the effect that C/Ds or time deposit passbooks worth a total of KRW 250,000,000 were held in custody, affixed the branch manager's seal kept by the deputy in charge of the loan section, and delivered these to Choi Byeong-seol. On March 30 and May 12, 1993, Choi Byeong-seol presented the said safekeeping deposit certificates to the Intervenor and demanded the return of the deposited items, but was refused, and around July of that year he even filed a civil suit against the Intervenor. Due to the above private-financing brokerage act, the Plaintiff was sentenced by the Appellate Division of the Seoul Criminal District Court on January 25, 1995 to eight months' imprisonment with one year's suspension of execution for violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (특정경제범죄가중처벌등에관한법률). The Intervenor's Rules of Employment list as grounds for disciplinary action: violating occupational duties so as to damage the honor and credit of the bank; intentionally or negligently causing operational impediments or disputes, or causing loss to the bank; and disturbing order within the bank. The Rules on Rewards and Punishments provide for disciplinary action against a person who intentionally or negligently causes operational impediments or disputes or causes loss to the bank; a person who disturbs order within the bank by violating the Rules of Employment, other regulations, pledges, or directives; a person who damages the honor of the bank or causes a serious social controversy; or a person who otherwise commits an unlawful or improper act, and provide, as a standard for discipline, that a person who intentionally or through gross negligence causes serious damage to the bank or seriously disturbs order, or who, regardless of the type of incident, causes serious controversy through such incident, shall be dismissed. The lower court further found that the Intervenor determined that the Plaintiff's improper issuance of the safekeeping deposit certificates and unauthorized use of the branch manager's seal, among other acts, constituted grounds for discipline, and disciplinarily dismissed the Plaintiff on May 15, 1993 pursuant to the Rules of Employment and the Rules on Rewards and Punishments. Based on these findings, the lower court determined that the Plaintiff's act of, without actually receiving any items into custody, photocopying the safekeeping deposit certificate form, writing false content thereon, and arbitrarily affixing the seal kept by the deputy in charge of the loan section, thereby issuing a high-value safekeeping deposit certificate to Choi Byeong-seol, which later resulted in Choi Byeong-seol filing suit against the Intervenor, constituted "committing an unlawful and improper act through intent or gross negligence, thereby seriously disturbing the order of the bank" and "causing serious controversy through an incident" under the Intervenor's Rules on Rewards and Punishments, and, in light of the circumstances and scale of the Plaintiff's improper issuance of the safekeeping deposit certificates and the impact thereof on the Intervenor's credit and honor, determined that the disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiff in this case was justified.
Upon examination of the record, the lower court's fact-finding and determination regarding the grounds for discipline against the Plaintiff are acceptable, and there is no illegality therein arising from misapprehension of facts in violation of the rules of evidence or misapprehension of the law concerning grounds for discipline.
Furthermore, even though the Plaintiff had not actually received a time deposit passbook or C/D in custody from Choi Byeong-seol, insofar as the Plaintiff photocopied a safekeeping deposit certificate form, wrote thereon a statement to the effect that a time deposit passbook or C/D had been received in custody and would be returned upon surrender of the certificate, affixed the branch manager's seal, and delivered it to Choi Byeong-seol, this cannot but be regarded as improper issuance of a safekeeping deposit certificate; and even though the Plaintiff, as branch manager, was the final custodian responsible for the branch manager's seal, insofar as the seal was used to issue such an improper safekeeping deposit certificate, this constitutes unauthorized use of the seal. In light of the fact that Choi Byeong-seol presented the said safekeeping deposit certificates to the Intervenor, demanded the return of the deposited items, and even filed a civil suit against the Intervenor, the Plaintiff's above misconduct constitutes "committing an unlawful and improper act through intent or gross negligence, thereby seriously disturbing the order of the bank" or "causing serious controversy through an incident," which are grounds for disciplinary dismissal under the Intervenor's Rules on Rewards and Punishments.
Meanwhile, whether a particular act of misconduct by an employee constitutes a ground for discipline should be determined by whether the disciplinary committee, etc., actually relied on that act as a ground for discipline based on the specific materials before it, and the grounds for discipline are not necessarily limited to the grounds for discipline stated in the Rules of Employment or disciplinary regulations as set forth in the disciplinary resolution or disciplinary disposition document (see Supreme Court Decision 95Nu15742 delivered on September 20, 1996). According to the disciplinary resolution in this case, the grounds for discipline against the Plaintiff as stated therein include the Plaintiff's improper issuance of the safekeeping deposit certificates and unauthorized use of the responsible officer's seal; however, in light of the circumstances of this disciplinary action, the said grounds for discipline against the Plaintiff should be understood as encompassing the entire series of acts constituting the improper issuance of the safekeeping deposit certificates, as well as the resulting disturbance of order and the serious controversy caused thereby. Moreover, in an application for remedy for unfair dismissal, etc., the object of review is solely whether there was justifiable cause for the disciplinary action such as dismissal against the employee (see Supreme Court Decision 91Nu5884 delivered on May 22, 1992), and the determination of whether there was justifiable cause for the disciplinary action must be made based on the grounds relied upon by the disciplinary committee as the grounds for discipline (see Supreme Court Decision 94Nu11880 delivered on March 10, 1995). Accordingly, in a lawsuit seeking revocation of a reexamination decision on a remedy for unfair dismissal as well, the justness of the disciplinary action should be determined based on the grounds relied upon by the disciplinary committee as the grounds for discipline, and on that basis, it should be determined whether the reexamination decision on the remedy for unfair dismissal erred in its determination as to the justness of the disciplinary action. According to the record, the National Labor Relations Commission found the fact that the Plaintiff caused the Intervenor to suffer damages of KRW 250,000,000 through the Plaintiff's improper issuance of the safekeeping deposit certificates by unauthorized use of the responsible officer's seal, even though the Intervenor could not be said to bear any liability toward Choi Byeong-seol due to the Plaintiff's said unauthorized use of the seal and improper issuance of the safekeeping deposit certificates, and determined that this constituted a ground for discipline as provided under the Intervenor's Rules of Employment and Rules on Rewards and Punishments. However, as noted above, the series of acts and the resulting consequences whereby the Plaintiff engaged in unauthorized use of the branch manager's seal and improperly issued the safekeeping deposit certificates, thereby disturbing the order of banking business and causing social controversy, constitute the grounds for discipline in this case, and the facts found as grounds for discipline against the Plaintiff in the reexamination decision in this case are also identical, in terms of the basic factual relationship, to the grounds relied upon by the disciplinary committee as grounds for discipline. Therefore, the lower court was correct to determine the justness of the disciplinary dismissal in this case and the propriety of the reexamination decision based on the facts relied upon by the disciplinary committee in this case as grounds for discipline against the Plaintiff, and there is no illegality therein arising from misapprehension of the law concerning the object of review in a lawsuit seeking revocation of a reexamination decision on a remedy for unfair dismissal.
Furthermore, the fact that the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (특정경제범죄가중처벌등에관한법률) makes the brokerage of private financing by executives and employees of financial institutions subject to criminal punishment, and that the Intervenor's Detailed Rules on Safekeeping Deposit Business strictly stipulate the requirements and procedures for issuing safekeeping deposit certificates, reflects the minimum requirements necessary, in light of the importance of the role of financial institutions in the smooth and proper circulation of funds in a modern industrial society, to ensure that executives and employees of financial institutions strictly comply therewith, thereby preventing large-scale financial incidents, maintaining the honor and credit of financial institutions, and further establishing economic order and promoting the development of the national economy. In light of the fact that the Plaintiff, as a bank branch manager, violated these rules, thereby disturbing the order of banking business, causing the Intervenor to become embroiled in litigation, giving rise to social controversy, and damaging the Intervenor's honor and credit, as well as the degree and scale of such violation, even taking into account all circumstances asserted by the Plaintiff, the disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiff in this case is justified, and there is no illegality therein arising from an abuse of disciplinary discretion.
Ultimately, all the grounds of appeal are without merit.
Therefore, the appeal is dismissed, and the costs of appeal are to be borne by the Plaintiff, the losing party. This judgment is rendered as set forth in the Order, with the unanimous concurrence of the participating Justices.
Presiding Justice Park Man-ho, Justice Park Jun-seo, Justice Kim Hyeong-seon (Justice in charge), Justice Lee Yong-hun