[Plaintiff, Appellant] Seoul Piston Co., Ltd., Attorney Kim Kyo-chang
[Defendant, Appellee] Dongyang Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Ltd., Attorney Yoo Kyung-hee and 3 others of Hanmi Joint Law Office
[Court Below]
Seoul High Court Judgment 88Na4180, decided October 12, 1988
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed.
The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the plaintiff.
[Reasoning]
The Court examines the grounds of appeal submitted by the plaintiff's attorney.
1. Under Article 2, Paragraph 2, Item 4 of the Standard Terms and Conditions of Comprehensive Automobile Insurance (자동차종합보험보통약관) applicable to this case, one of the grounds for the insurer's exemption from liability regarding bodily injury liability coverage is where the victim is an employee of the insured who bears liability for compensation and is a person eligible to receive disaster compensation under the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법). With respect to damages arising from industrial accidents occurring within the employer-employee relationship, the Labor Standards Act, which governs labor relations, provides for various compensation obligations of the employer, while the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (산업재해보상보험법) establishes the industrial accident compensation insurance system to secure such compensation obligations. Therefore, it is reasonable to interpret the above exemption clause as intending to exclude, from the scope of bodily injury liability coverage under automobile insurance—whose purpose is to cover liability for compensation to third parties—accident compensation arising from labor relations, which is to be compensated through industrial accident compensation insurance instead. Such an exemption clause cannot be regarded as a provision that changes the grounds for exemption under Article 659 of the Commercial Act (상법) in a manner disadvantageous to the policyholder.
According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the court below found that the victim of this accident, non-party Choi Byung-gu, was an employee of the plaintiff company, the insured, and that he received disability compensation, temporary disability compensation, nursing expenses, medical expenses, wheelchair costs, etc. from the Suwon Regional Office of the Ministry of Labor under the industrial accident compensation insurance in which the plaintiff was enrolled. The court below then rejected the plaintiff's claim for insurance proceeds in this case on the ground that the above Choi Byung-gu was a victim falling under the exemption clause for bodily injury liability coverage under the above Standard Terms and Conditions of Comprehensive Automobile Insurance. Such a measure by the court below is justified, and there is no illegality in misconstruing the legal principles of insurance contracts or the interpretation of standard insurance terms, as argued in the grounds of appeal. Therefore, this ground of appeal is without merit. (Although the judgment below also determined that this accident falls under a self-inflicted accident (자손사고) under the above insurance terms, this is merely a supplementary determination that does not affect the conclusion of the judgment, and thus the argument on this point is also not to be accepted.)
In addition, the appellant argues that the above exemption clause conflicts with Article 672 of the Commercial Act, which provides that in the case of overlapping insurance (중복보험), the insurer is exempted from liability only to the extent of the overlap, and that therefore the clause is a special agreement disadvantageous to the policyholder and thus invalid. However, overlapping insurance under Article 672 of the Commercial Act refers to a case where multiple insurance contracts are concluded with respect to the same object and the same accident. Since industrial accident compensation insurance and comprehensive automobile insurance (bodily injury liability insurance) cannot be regarded as having the same insured object and insured accident, even if the employer is simultaneously enrolled in both industrial accident compensation insurance and comprehensive automobile insurance, this cannot be deemed to constitute overlapping insurance under Article 672 of the Commercial Act. Therefore, this argument is also without merit.
2. The reason why standard insurance terms are binding upon the parties to a contract is not because the terms themselves constitute a legal norm or have the nature of a legal norm, but because the parties to the insurance contract have agreed to incorporate them into the content of the contract (see this Court's Judgment 84Daka2543, decided October 14, 1985; Judgment 84Daka122, decided November 26, 1986). In general, where a policyholder has personally prepared an insurance contract document incorporating the standard insurance terms into the content of the contract, the policyholder cannot escape the binding force of the terms on the ground that he did not carefully examine the content of the terms or did not hear an explanation from the insurer and thus did not know of them, unless the content of the terms is not indicated in a manner generally expected, or unless the content is of such importance as to particularly require an explanation from the insurance business operator.
Upon examination of the record, the measure recognizing the binding force of the exemption clause in this case is acceptable, and the argument that it is invalid as being contrary to the principle of good faith or invalid as violating the purport of the Act on the Regulation of Terms and Conditions (약관의 규제에 관한 법률) is merely an independent criticism of the judgment below and is without merit.
3. Therefore, the appeal is dismissed, and the costs of the appeal are to be borne by the losing party. This judgment is rendered as set forth in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Justice Kim Sang-won (Presiding Justice), Lee Hoi-chang, Bae Seok, Kim Ju-han