Injury due to lack of communication ruled industrial accident

By Kwon Mee-yoo

A migrant worker who is not fluent in Korean and sustained an injury during a struggle with a Korean worker because of miscommunication is the victim of an industrial accident, a court ruled Sunday.

The Seoul High Court issued a decision in favor of an ethnic Korean-Chinese worker, Kim, 29, who filed a complaint against the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (KWCWS). The right side of Kim’s body was paralyzed after he was hit on the head during an assault from another laborer who thought Kim insulted him.

Kim was an assistant painter at a furniture factory and knocked down a wooden board by mistake in May 2008. He put it aside, but a colleague Lee told him to move it onto the worktable. However, Kim did not understand what Lee said and smiled awkwardly.

Lee thought Kim sneered at him and was disobeying his instruction, and slapped Kim in the face.

Kim hit Lee with a wooden stick and Lee struck Kim with an aluminum sprayer. Kim filed for recuperation with the KWCWS, but the organization denied him, resulting in the lawsuit.

He lost the first trial as the court considered Kim provoked Lee by hitting him with stick.

However, the upper court thought it was an accident caused by the language barrier. “It was a conflict arising from duty due to lack of understanding at a factory that hired both Korean and foreign workers,” the court said.

“Accumulated feuding because of the language barrier led to the accident, thus the injuries are considered the result of an occupational hazard.”