Foreign Worker with Poor Korean Skills Dies in 30m Fall... Supreme Court Says Site Manager Must Be Held Accountable

Russian Worker Dies While Dismantling Euroform

Second Trial: "No Responsibility for Death, as Internal Work Was Instructed"

Supreme Court: "No Substantive Safety Measures Taken"

Case Remanded for Guilty Verdict

If a foreign worker with poor proficiency in Korean is forced to perform tasks at a construction site and dies after falling, the site manager should be held responsible for failing to take sufficient safety measures, according to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

On March 20, according to legal sources, the Supreme Court (Presiding Justice Shin Sookhee) overturned a lower court's acquittal of site manager A, an employee of a subcontracted construction company, who was indicted on charges of occupational negligence resulting in death and violation of the Industrial Safety and Health Act, and remanded the case to the lower court for further review.

The accident occurred in 2020 at a newly constructed apartment building site. A Russian worker in his twenties fell to his death from a height of 30 meters while attempting to dismantle an exterior euroform mold used for building the rooftop parapet (guard wall), along with the "gang form," a formwork integrated with the work platform.

The central issue in the trial was whether A, who was both the site manager and the person in charge of safety and health management, could be held liable for violating his duty of care at work, even though he had instructed the worker to work safely inside the rooftop, and the worker climbed onto the gang form on his own and died.

The court of first instance found A guilty of both violating safety measures and occupational negligence resulting in death, sentencing him to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years.

However, the second instance court reached a different conclusion. It acknowledged that A had instructed workers on the morning of the accident to "work safely inside the rooftop," and acquitted him of charges related to violating the Industrial Safety and Health Act and occupational negligence resulting in death. The court imposed only a fine of 5 million won for violating general safety obligation requirements.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court once again overturned the acquittal. The bench pointed out, "The defendant was at least aware that the victim, a foreign national, had difficulty communicating in Korean, and that workers on the formwork dismantling team might use the gang form as a work platform, yet he did not take any additional safety measures."

The court continued, "It is reasonable to conclude that the defendant violated the safety obligation stipulated by the Industrial Safety and Health Act, and there is a substantial causal relationship between this violation and the victim's death," thereby remanding the case for a guilty verdict.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.