[Plaintiff, Appellee] Haedong Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. (Attorney Jung Myeong-taek, Counsel for the plaintiff)
[Defendant, Appellant] Seongil Taxi Limited Partnership Company
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 90Na7120 rendered on June 29, 1990
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed.
The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.
[Reasoning]
1. Judgment on the Defendant's first ground of appeal
According to the reasoning of the first instance judgment as cited by the court below, the first instance court found the following facts: On January 15, 1989, the Defendant company enrolled its business taxi (vehicle registration number omitted) in a comprehensive automobile insurance policy issued by the Plaintiff company, with the Defendant as the insured and the insurance period running from January 16, 1989 to January 16, 1990; at that time, in accordance with the insurance clauses then in effect, it was agreed that where a victim of an automobile accident is an employee of the insured Defendant who is entitled to receive accident compensation under the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법), the Plaintiff, as the insurer, would not compensate for the resulting loss. It was further found that on February 21, 1989, at approximately 06:10, Nonparty 1, a driver employed by the Defendant company, was driving the above taxi within the city of Cheonan when, due to careless driving, he struck a roadside tree, resulting in the deaths of himself and the deceased Nonparty 2, who was a passenger in the taxi. However, since the Defendant company was located in Cheonwon-gun and most of the drivers employed by the Defendant company resided within the city of Cheonan, it was found that when the drivers worked shift rotations, they had been commuting to and from work using the Defendant company's taxis with the implicit approval of the Defendant company. It was further found that on the day of the accident, the deceased Nonparty 2, after finishing his shift as a driver employed by the Defendant company, was riding in the above taxi, which was being driven by Nonparty 1, the driver on the next shift, on his way home to his residence in the city of Cheonan when the accident in this case occurred. Based on these findings, the court below determined that the accident occurred while Nonparty 2 was commuting home using the means of transportation that the Defendant company had implicitly allowed its employees to use, and that, in light of the fact that commuting home using the said vehicle was an inevitable incident of the employees' provision of labor for the Defendant company, the death of Nonparty 2 constituted an occupational accident, and accordingly determined that Nonparty 2 was an employee of the Defendant company who was entitled to receive accident compensation under the Labor Standards Act.
In light of the relevant evidence, the record, and the provisions of the relevant statutes, the above findings and determination of the court below are justified and acceptable, and it cannot be said that the judgment below erred in its legal interpretation of the scope of occupational accidents as argued in the grounds of appeal. Therefore, this ground of appeal is without merit.
2. Judgment on the second ground of appeal
In a comprehensive automobile insurance contract's bodily injury liability insurance provision, under which the insured is to be compensated by the insurer for losses incurred as a result of bearing liability for damages under the Act on Guarantee of Compensation for Loss Caused by Automobile Accidents (자동차손해배상보장법) by causing death or injury to another person through the operation of the automobile, the exemption clause of the General Terms and Conditions of Comprehensive Automobile Insurance (Article 10, Paragraph 2, Item 4), which provides that where the victim of the accident is an employee of the insured who bears liability for compensation and who is entitled to receive accident compensation under the Labor Standards Act, the insurer shall not compensate for the loss incurred by the insured as a result of the accident, has the following purpose: For losses arising from occupational accidents occurring within the employer-employee labor relationship, the Labor Standards Act, which governs labor relations, provides for various compensation liabilities of the employer, and the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (산업재해보상보험법) establishes an industrial accident compensation insurance system to guarantee such compensation liability. Accordingly, the purpose of the clause is to ensure that, in principle, accident compensation arising within labor relations is to be covered by industrial accident compensation insurance, and to exclude such matters from the scope of bodily injury liability coverage under automobile insurance, which is intended to cover liability for damages to third parties. Therefore, it is difficult to regard this clause as falling within the scope of application of Article 659 of the Commercial Act (상법), which is intended to exclude from insurance protection persons responsible for causing the loss. Accordingly, it cannot be said that the above exemption clause is invalid as violating Article 663 of the same Act by altering, to the detriment of the policyholder or the insured, the grounds for exemption provided in Article 659 of the Commercial Act. This is the position taken in the precedents of this Court (Supreme Court Decision 88Daka29177 rendered on November 14, 1989; Supreme Court Decision 89Daka24070 rendered on April 27, 1990; Supreme Court Decision 90Daka26553 rendered on December 11, 1990; Supreme Court Decision 91Da6634 rendered on May 14, 1991, etc.).
Given the foregoing, on the premise that the above exemption clause is valid, even if, as argued in the grounds of appeal, Nonparty 2 does not fall within the scope of "insured" under the insurance clause and is instead a third party, since he was an employee of the Defendant company whose death resulting from the accident in this case constitutes an occupational accident and who is thus entitled to receive accident compensation under the Labor Standards Act, the determination of the court below that the Plaintiff owes no obligation to pay insurance proceeds to the Defendant company by virtue of the above exemption clause is justified. The argument criticizing the judgment below based on the Defendant's own independent view that the above exemption clause is invalid as violating the provisions of the Commercial Act cannot be accepted.
3. Accordingly, the Defendant's appeal is dismissed, and the costs of the appeal are to be borne by the Defendant, the losing party. The opinions of the Justices involved being unanimous, it is so ordered as stated in the Order.
Supreme Court Justice Yoon Kwan (Presiding Justice), Choi Jae-ho, Kim Ju-han, Kim Yong-jun