[Plaintiff, Appellee]
[Defendant, Appellant] Ganghwa-gun Medical Insurance Association
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 92Na70542 delivered on December 9, 1993
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed. The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal (including the supplementary grounds of appeal submitted after the expiration of the period for submitting the grounds of appeal, to the extent they supplement the original grounds of appeal) are examined.
1.
Article 12(5) of the Regional Medical Insurance Association Operating Regulations (hereinafter "the Operating Regulations") provides that a member of the Personnel Committee who has an interest in a matter under deliberation may not attend the meeting concerning that matter, and this provision must be regarded as mandatory. Meanwhile, the Defendant cited, as the grounds for the Plaintiff's suspension from position, the grounds set forth in Article 35(1)(1) of the aforesaid Operating Regulations, namely, that the Plaintiff was a person lacking the ability to perform his duties, or whose work performance was poor, or whose work attitude was extremely unfaithful, and the specific content thereof consisted of verbal abuse directed at the non-party [Ahn Seong-su], as well as misconduct, expressions of distrust, and insulting remarks made toward him. Accordingly, it is clear that the aforementioned Ahn Seong-su, as the specific victim of the Plaintiff's conduct, was a person having an interest in the matter under deliberation by the Personnel Committee reviewing the Plaintiff's suspension from position. Therefore, the Personnel Committee, in which Ahn Seong-su participated as chairperson and conducted the deliberation and decision, had a serious defect in its composition, and thus the Defendant's disposition of suspension from position dated October 5, 1991, made pursuant to the resolution of that Personnel Committee, has a serious procedural defect and is void, and the Defendant's disposition of ex officio dismissal dated January 6, 1992, which was based thereon, is likewise void. The judgment below, which is to the same effect, is justified, and it cannot be said that the judgment below contains the illegality alleged in the grounds of appeal. This ground of appeal is without merit.
2.
If a person subject to disciplinary action, dissatisfied with the disciplinary disposition, requests a reexamination, the reexamination procedure, together with the original disciplinary procedure, constitutes one single disciplinary disposition procedure as a whole; therefore, the legitimacy of that procedure must be assessed with respect to the entire disciplinary process, and even if there was a procedural defect in the earlier disciplinary process, such defect is cured if it is remedied during the reexamination process (see Supreme Court Decision 80Da1769 delivered on June 9, 1981; Supreme Court Decision 91Da36123 delivered on September 22, 1992; Supreme Court Decision 93Da29358 delivered on October 26, 1993; Supreme Court Decision 93Da17690 delivered on November 9, 1993). This legal principle likewise applies to cases involving disadvantageous dispositions against workers, such as suspension from position.
Meanwhile, the Medical Insurance Federation is a corporation established pursuant to an order of the Minister of Health and Social Affairs under Article 27 of the Medical Insurance Act (의료보험법), and is an association of insurers organized with, as its members, all entities responsible for the administration and management of medical insurance, such as workplace medical insurance associations, regional medical insurance associations, and the Public Officials and Private School Teachers and Staff Medical Insurance Management Corporation (Article 27(1) of the Medical Insurance Act). The Federation's purpose is to promote the sound development and cultivation of its members and to facilitate the smooth conduct of medical insurance business, thereby improving national health and contributing to the enhancement of social security (Article 2 of the Federation's Articles of Incorporation). Its principal functions include the guidance and supervision of associations as delegated by the Minister of Health and Social Affairs (Article 81(2) of the Medical Insurance Act) and the guidance of associations' business operations (Article 31(5) of the Federation's Articles of Incorporation).
Meanwhile, Article 25 of the Medical Insurance Act provides that matters concerning the organization and administration and management of medical insurance associations shall be prescribed by Presidential Decree, and Article 13-2 of the Enforcement Decree of the same Act provides that a medical insurance association shall establish operating regulations concerning organization, personnel affairs, remuneration, and accounting, etc., in accordance with what is determined by the Minister of Health and Social Affairs. Based on this, the Minister of Health and Social Affairs enacted and has enforced the Regional Medical Insurance Association Operating Regulations in the form of an administrative rule (yegyu). In light of the fact that the specific contents of the Operating Regulations include most of the matters required to be stated in employment rules (chibeop gyuchik) under Article 94 of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법), the Operating Regulations must be regarded as constituting employment rules applicable to regional medical insurance associations (see Supreme Court Decision 92Do2340 delivered on May 25, 1993).
Meanwhile, the Operating Regulations provide as follows: an employee who has received a disadvantageous disposition against his will may request an examination by the Petition Examination Committee (Article 26(1)); the Federation shall establish a Petition Examination Committee to examine petitions from association employees, and the committee shall consist of one chairperson and five members, with the chairperson being the standing director in charge of the Federation's legal affairs, and the members being one representative director of a regional medical insurance association and persons appointed by the chairperson from among the Federation's executives or Grade 1 employees (Article 27(1), (2)); the Petition Examination Committee shall pass resolutions with the attendance of two-thirds or more of the registered members and the consent of a majority of the members present, provided that in the event of a tie, the chairperson shall have the deciding vote, and a member who has an interest in a matter under deliberation by the Petition Examination Committee may not attend the meeting concerning that matter (Article 28(2), (3)); the Petition Examination Committee may, when it deems necessary for the examination, require the petitioner or a related person to submit necessary documents, state opinions, or make reports, and where the Petition Examination Committee summons an employee of an association as a witness for the purpose of examining a petition, the representative director of the association concerned shall comply therewith (Article 29(2), (3)); when the Petition Examination Committee examines a petition, it shall grant the petitioner or his agent an opportunity to make statements, and a decision made without granting such opportunity to make statements shall be void (Article 30(1), (2)); and the representative director of the association concerned shall comply with the decision of the Petition Examination Committee made pursuant to Article 28 (Article 31).
Furthermore, under the Operating Regulations, the Federation is to conduct matters such as the administration of promotion examinations for association employees (Article 20(3)), the operation of the Personnel Exchange Deliberation Committee, which is a personnel exchange body among associations (Articles 36 through 39), and the provision of education and training for association employees (Article 65), and thus the Federation holds a position of having been delegated authority from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs over part of the personnel and educational affairs of individual association employees. Considering the foregoing points, even though the regional medical insurance association and the Medical Insurance Federation are separate corporations with different members and organizations, the deliberations of the Defendant Association's Personnel Committee and the Medical Insurance Federation's Petition Examination Committee together constitute a single procedure as a whole, such that the examination by the Medical Insurance Federation's Petition Examination Committee may be regarded as a reexamination procedure of the Defendant Association's Personnel Committee. Accordingly, if the Plaintiff, dissatisfied with the suspension from position at issue in this case, requested an examination from the Medical Insurance Federation's Petition Examination Committee, that examination procedure, together with the Defendant Association's procedure, constitutes one single disposition procedure as a whole, and the legitimacy of that procedure must be assessed with respect to the entire disposition process; therefore, even if there was a procedural defect in the earlier disposition process, such defect is cured if it was remedied during the aforementioned examination process.
Therefore, the court below's determination that the defect arising from the procedural violation could not be cured even though the reexamination procedure was conducted before the Petition Examination Committee contains an error of law based on a misunderstanding of the legal principles concerning the cure of defects arising from procedural violations in the process of suspension from position.
3.
However, the court below's determination that it is difficult to regard each ground for the Plaintiff's suspension from position as corresponding to the grounds for suspension from position under the Defendant Association's Operating Regulations—namely, poor work performance or an extremely unfaithful work attitude—is acceptable. Accordingly, since the aforesaid suspension from position disposition is void, and the ex officio dismissal disposition made on the basis thereof is also void, the above-mentioned error of law by the court below concerning the cure of the defect arising from the procedural violation cannot affect the outcome of the judgment which upheld the Plaintiff's claim. In the end, this ground of appeal is without merit.
4.
The Defendant also filed an appeal with respect to the portion of the judgment ordering payment of wages, but has not set forth any grounds of appeal with respect to this portion, nor is there any statement thereof in the petition of appeal.
5.
Therefore, the appeal is dismissed, and the costs of the appeal are to be borne by the losing party, and it is so decided as stated in the Order, by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Justice Kim Seok-su (Presiding Justice), Lee Don-hee, Lee Im-su (Justice in Charge)