[Plaintiff, Appellee]
[Defendant, Appellant] Dongbu Chemical Co., Ltd., successor to the litigation of Yeongnam Chemical Co., Ltd., Litigation Representative Attorneys Kim Dong-hwan and 4 others
[Original Judgment] Seoul High Court Judgment 91Na43321 rendered on May 12, 1992
[Order]
The original judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal are examined.
According to the reasoning of the original judgment, the court below found, based on the evidence presented, the following facts: that Dongbu Petrochemical Co., Ltd., a company affiliated with the Dongbu Group, was awarded a successful bid on October 26, 1987 for 50 percent of the issued shares of Yeongnam Chemical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yeongnam Chemical"), which had been owned by the non-party Korea General Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., a government-invested institution, and thereby took over the management rights of Yeongnam Chemical around February 22, 1988; that Yeongnam Chemical, in preparation for the government's forthcoming policy of liberalizing fertilizer sales, established a plan to reduce productivity costs and improve efficiency by first downsizing its organizational structure and reducing personnel, and pursuant to this plan, on March 2, 1988, collectively received letters of resignation from executives of department head rank or higher, including the Plaintiffs, and thereafter around March 4 of the same year, accepted the letters of resignation of ten department head-level employees, including the Plaintiffs, and issued dispositions of voluntary retirement; and that Yeongnam Chemical was merged into the Defendant company on June 7, 1990. Based on these findings, the court below held that the Plaintiffs' expressions of intent to resign were not genuine, and that Yeongnam Chemical was aware of these circumstances, such that the resignations were void; therefore, the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case constituted dismissals that unilaterally terminated the labor contract relationship at the employer's discretion, and thus, absent justifiable grounds, were void as violating Article 27 of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법). The court below further held that the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case could not be regarded as a layoff for managerial reasons (redundancy dismissal); and that even assuming they were to be regarded as such, according to the findings above, Yeongnam Chemical had made no effort to avoid dismissal prior to issuing the dispositions of voluntary retirement, had not selected the persons to be dismissed according to reasonable and fair criteria for restructuring, and had not engaged in good-faith consultation with the department head-level employees, including the Plaintiffs; therefore, even considered as a layoff for managerial reasons, the dispositions were not valid and were ultimately void.
Examining the record, it can be found that when the Plaintiffs collectively submitted their letters of resignation to Yeongnam Chemical, they did so without any genuine internal intent to terminate the labor contract relationship, and that Yeongnam Chemical accepted the letters of resignation while being aware of these circumstances; accordingly, the Plaintiffs' expressions of intent to resign are void (see Supreme Court Decision 90Da11554 rendered on July 12, 1991). The findings of the court below to this effect are correct, and there is no error therein of misunderstanding the legal principles under Article 107 of the Civil Act (민법) as argued in the grounds of appeal. This argument is without merit.
However, according to the record, the Defendant has argued that the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case satisfy the requirements for a layoff for managerial reasons and are therefore valid, and the Plaintiffs as well, according to the preparatory brief dated May 22, 1990, submitted by the Plaintiffs' representative and stated at the 8th hearing date of the first instance court (record p. 465) at 2:00 p.m. on May 24, 1990 (record p. 429), stated to the effect that there is no dispute that the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case constitute a layoff for managerial reasons. Accordingly, there is no dispute between the Plaintiffs and Defendant that the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case constitute a layoff for managerial reasons, and, examining the record, it is clear that the Defendant's dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case constitute a layoff for managerial reasons.
Nevertheless, the court below, in the first part of its reasoning (from the middle of page 6 of the original judgment onward), held that the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case were made pursuant to Yeongnam Chemical's plan to downsize its organization in order to improve productivity and reduce costs, which is to say that the court below held that the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case constituted a layoff for managerial reasons; yet in the latter part of its reasoning (the lower portion of page 9 of the original judgment), the court below held that the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case did not constitute a layoff for managerial reasons. This constitutes an unlawful contradiction in reasoning. Furthermore, according to the record, there is evidence that Yeongnam Chemical, in establishing its plan to reorganize its bloated organizational structure and reduce surplus personnel, set forth criteria for doing so; that it took remedial measures for the personnel to be reduced, such as new employment within companies affiliated with the Dongbu Group; and that it consulted with the labor union, which represented the union members among the personnel to be reduced. Notwithstanding this evidence, the court below held, as stated above, that Yeongnam Chemical had made no effort to avoid dismissal prior to issuing the dispositions of voluntary retirement in this case, had not selected the persons to be dismissed according to reasonable and fair criteria for restructuring, and had not engaged in good-faith consultation with the department head-level employees, including the Plaintiffs, and therefore that the dispositions were not valid as a layoff for managerial reasons. This holding of the court below cannot be said to be free of the error of having failed to fully examine the matter or of having misunderstood the legal principles governing layoffs for managerial reasons. The argument pointing out this error is with merit.
Accordingly, the original judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the court below for further examination and adjudication. This judgment is rendered as stated in the Order, upon unanimous agreement of the Justices involved.
Justice Kim Sang-won (Presiding Justice), Park Woo-dong, Yoon Young-chul, Park Man-ho