[Plaintiff, Appellee] Plaintiff's Attorney Heo Hyang
[Defendant, Appellant] Chief of Uijeongbu Regional Labor Office
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 89Gu5821 rendered on October 5, 1989
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed.
The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.
[Reasoning]
The Court examines the grounds of appeal submitted by the Defendant's litigation performer.
The term "occupational accident" as provided in Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (산업재해보상보험법) shall be construed to mean an injury, disease, physical disability, or death of an employee arising from the employee's duties while performing such duties (see this Court's Decisions 84Nu403 rendered on December 24, 1985; 89Nu1186 rendered on October 24, 1989).
According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the court below, based on the totality of the evidence adopted, found the following facts: the deceased non-party, who was the Plaintiff's husband, joined non-party Bupyeong Freight Motor Vehicle Co., Ltd. as a freight truck driver on October 10, 1988, and had been engaged in the transportation of oxygen cylinders for Union Gas Co., Ltd., which had entered into a cylinder transportation service contract with the said company; that after spending the holidays from January 1 to January 3, 1989, he reported to work early in the morning at Union Gas Co., Ltd. on January 4 of the same month, and from 8:00 a.m., while loading approximately 40 of the 73 sixty-kilogram oxygen cylinders, together with two laborers, onto a double freight truck he himself was driving, in order to deliver them to the client Seoul Dongmyeong Sangsa, he suddenly collapsed to the floor, losing consciousness, and died of a heart attack while being transported to the hospital; that the deceased had habitually loaded oxygen cylinders weighing 50 to 60 kilograms or more each by rolling them together with one transport assistant, and had made two to three round trips per day from Giheung to the destination, Seoul, and moreover, when unloading the cylinders, in order to prevent explosion due to impact, the work was carried out carefully by having the assistant receive them from below or by laying down a rubber mat and letting them drop; that repeating such loading, unloading, and transportation work two to three times daily constituted physically and mentally excessive work, resulting in the accumulation of considerable fatigue; that on the day of the accident, the weather was also extremely cold, making it unsuitable even for an ordinarily healthy person to perform outdoor work; and that the deceased had no underlying disease, but had failed to obtain sufficient rest as he had consumed considerable amounts of alcohol with friends during the holiday period. Based on these findings, the court below held that the cause of the deceased's death could be attributed to a complex combination of factors, namely, the habitually accumulated fatigue, excessive alcohol consumption during the holidays, and the hardship arising from outdoor work during extreme cold weather, which together induced the heart attack, and thus ruled that the death of the said non-party constituted death due to occupational cause as provided in Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act.
Upon examination of the process by which the court below adopted the evidence, in light of the record, the fact-finding and judgment of the court below are justified, and there is no illegality therein arising from misapprehension of facts due to violation of the rules of evidence or from a misunderstanding of the legal principles concerning occupational accidents. Therefore, this ground of appeal is also without merit.
Accordingly, 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 Lee Hoe-chang (Presiding Justice), Bae Seok, Kim Sang-won, Kim Ju-han