Who must prove that work and injury are not adequately linked? Decision 2017Du45933 on the burden of proving adequate causation

Question

Article 5(1) of the former Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act defines 'occupational accident' and Article 37(1) of the same Act, added by the wholesale amendment of 14 December 2007 (Act No. 8694), lays down the criteria for recognising one, with a proviso about adequate causation. Where a claim for insurance benefits is refused for want of adequate causation between work and injury, the question is whether that amendment placed the burden of proving the absence of adequate causation on the Korea Workers' Compensation Service, or whether the burden of proving it remains with the worker who asserts the accident.

Decision 2017Du45933 answers that question in a full bench of the Supreme Court. The plaintiff's son, working as a dispatched employee, collapsed at work on 19 April 2014 and died of cardiac tamponade caused by a ruptured dissecting aortic aneurysm, the disease at issue; earlier that morning, at about 09:54, he and a colleague had loaded boxes of about 5 kg onto a freight truck, two or three at a time, for about ten minutes. The Service refused survivor's benefit and funeral expenses, the Seoul High Court dismissed the claim on the footing that the worker's side must prove causation, and the plaintiff argued before the Supreme Court that the 2007 amendment had changed the burden and that the established case law should be overruled.

Material to check

The statutes are Article 5(1) and Article 37(1) of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, former versions as the decision cites them, being the text before its amendment by Act No. 14933 of 24 October 2017, whose content is not restated here, and Article 26 of the Administrative Litigation Act, which the decision lists as a reference provision and whose current text provides that the court may take evidence ex officio and may decide facts the parties have not argued.

The decision is Decision 2017Du45933 (9 September 2021), a full bench judgment. It reviews the case law holding that the party asserting an occupational accident proves adequate causation, referring to Decisions 88Nu10947 (25 July 1989), 99Du11424 (12 May 2000), 2006Du4912 (12 April 2007), and, after the 2007 amendment, Decisions 2014Du2546 (30 October 2014), 2016Du43817 (26 April 2017) and 2015Du3867 (29 August 2017). It also cites Decision 2016Du55292 (30 March 2017) on death from pneumoconiosis and Decisions 2011Du723 (13 May 2011), 2016Du63996 (13 December 2017) and 2017Du53941 (28 June 2018) on benefits under the statutes for persons of national merit and veterans' welfare.

Possible readings

Read with the decision's account of the scheme of the Act, insurance benefits are payable only where a worker suffers injury, disease, disability or death for work-related reasons, so the existence of a causal link is itself a condition of entitlement which the worker's side must prove. The provision added in 2007 sets out causation as a positive requirement of recognition in its main text and clarifies in its proviso that this causation means adequate causation; the decision reads the proviso as confirming and explaining that requirement, not as distributing to the Service the burden of proving its absence.

A second reading follows the legislative history the decision sets out. Before 2007 the recognition criteria had been left to a decree of the Ministry of Labour, which raised a delegation objection; the 2007 amendment stated the criteria in the Act by type and left details to a presidential decree, in order to end that dispute and make clear that adequate causation is required. The proviso about adequate causation was added only in the course of drafting revisions, to prevent the misreading that other items required no causation at all. The decision finds no sign that this was meant to bring the fundamental change of shifting the burden.

A third reading is the systemic one the decision gives. Requiring adequate causation attributes the injury rationally to the employer's sphere of responsibility, consistent with the Act's character as both social security and liability insurance for the employer's compensation duty under the Labour Standards Act; reading the provision as shifting the burden would sit ill with the rules on pneumoconiosis and on re-treatment and additional treatment, and with the compensation schemes for public officials, soldiers and private school staff. The dissent reads the same main text and proviso the other way: the worker's side proves work-relatedness and causation under the items of the main text, and the opponent proves the absence of adequate causation under the proviso.

What the decisions held

Decision 2017Du45933 (9 September 2021) dismissed the appeal and left the costs on the plaintiff. It held that Article 37(1), added by the 2007 amendment, is not a provision that distributes or shifts to the Korea Workers' Compensation Service the burden of proving adequate causation between work and injury, and that even after the 2007 amendment that burden lies with the worker's side, so the established case law is maintained. Four Justices dissented.

On the facts, the plaintiff's son had joined Samsung HRM Co., Ltd. on 24 February 2014 and been dispatched to a partner firm, sampling mobile-phone antennas for quality inspection. On 19 April 2014 he came to work and, at about 09:54, he and a colleague loaded about 80 boxes of about 5 kg onto a freight truck, two or three at a time, for about ten minutes; walking back to the office he collapsed and died of cardiac tamponade from a ruptured dissecting aortic aneurysm. The plaintiff claimed survivor's benefit and funeral expenses on 1 July 2014 and the Service refused on 22 September 2014 for want of adequate causation. The Seoul High Court (7 April 2017, 2016Nu59982) found no adequate causation and dismissed the claim.

The Supreme Court added a note on the outcome. The court below did not merely hold that the worker's side had failed to discharge the burden; it affirmatively found the absence of causation from the short period of employment, the modest load, the absence of any sudden event, the deceased's smoking and drinking, and the medical opinions. On that finding the result would be the same even if the Service bore the burden of proving the absence of adequate causation, since it had been proved.

Points left open

The decision construes the provision as it stood before its amendment by Act No. 14933 of 24 October 2017 and does not state the text of the provision in force now, so whether the same answer holds for the current wording is not settled here.

The decision also leaves the parallel provisos unresolved in application. The majority notes that Article 4(1) of the State Public Officials' Accident Compensation Act (Act No. 15522, 20 March 2018), Article 4(1) of the Soldiers' Accident Compensation Act (Act No. 16761, 10 December 2019) and Article 33 of the Private School Teachers and Staff Pension Act with its Enforcement Decree Article 29(2) carry almost identical provisos, and reads them against a shift of burden as a matter of coherence, while the dissent says those provisions should be read as placing the burden of proving the absence of adequate causation on the opponent. No judgment construing those statutes is decided here.

When to reconsider

We revisit this brief if the Supreme Court changes its case law on the burden of proving adequate causation, if the Act is amended to place that burden on the Korea Workers' Compensation Service, or if a later decision construes the parallel provisos of the public officials', soldiers' or private school staff compensation statutes.

Statutes referred to

• 구 산업재해보상보험법 제5조, 제37조
• 행정소송법 제26조

Decisions referred to

• 대법원 2021. 9. 9. 선고 2017두45933 전원합의체 판결 · Decision ledger

Verification status

All texts were read at the National Law Information Center on 24 October 2026: the decision in its published holdings, summary and full reasons, the former versions of the cited Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act provisions, and the current text of Article 26 of the Administrative Litigation Act. The decision itself records the text of the former provisions and the legislative history it relies on.