Open Decision Ledger · Labour & industrial accidents
Labour dispatch test for partner company facility workers
Supreme Court, Apr. 28, 2022, 2021Da290160 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 근로자지위확인등
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where a car manufacturer entrusted facility management at its research institute to a partner company and the partner company's employees performed that work, did their relationship with the manufacturer amount to labour dispatch under Article 2(i) of the Act on the Protection of Dispatched Workers?
Holding
The relationship was not labour dispatch. Judged on the substance of the employment relationship rather than the name or form of the contract, the Supreme Court accepted the finding that the car manufacturer could not be said to have exercised substantial direction or command over the partner company's workers, and that their facility management duties at the research institute were plainly distinct from the institute's own core business, with the other circumstances pointing the same way. It therefore found no error in the appellate judgment holding that the relationship was not one of labour dispatch, and dismissed the appeals.
Points at issue, verbatim
갑 회사가 을 등의 업무수행에 관하여 상당한 지휘·명령을 하였다고 보기 어렵고, 을 등이 수행하는 시설관리업무가 연구소의 본연의 업무와 명백히 구별되는 등 제반 사정에 비추어 갑 회사와 을 등은 근로자파견관계에 해당하지 않는다고 본 원심판단을 수긍한 사례
Unofficial English translation
A case in which, it being difficult to regard A Corporation as having exercised substantial direction and orders over the performance of work by B and others, and the facility management work performed by B and others being clearly distinguishable from the research institute's inherent work, the court below, in light of all the circumstances, held that A Corporation and B and others were not in a worker dispatch relationship, and the Supreme Court affirmed that determination
Disposition
Dismissed Stated in the decision
상고를 모두 기각한다. 상고비용은 원고들이 부담한다.
Unofficial English translation
All appeals are dismissed. The plaintiffs shall bear the costs of the final appeal.
Form of the test
Circumstances weighed Stated in the decision
요소를 바탕으로 그 근로관계의 실질에 따라 판단하여야 한다
Unofficial English translation
must be determined on the basis of such factors, according to the substance of the employment relationship
Factors
- 갑 회사가 을 등의 업무수행에 관하여 상당한 지휘·명령을 하였다고 보기 어렵고
- 을 등이 수행하는 시설관리업무가 연구소의 본연의 업무와 명백히 구별되는
Unofficial English translation
• it is difficult to regard A Corporation as having exercised substantial direction and orders over the performance of work by B and others, and
• the facility management work performed by B and others is clearly distinguishable from the research institute's inherent work,
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2015. 2. 26. 선고 2010다106436 판결(공2015상, 515)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2010Da106436 decided February 26, 2015 (Gong 2015 Sang, 515)
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 2015. 2. 26. 선고 2010다106436 판결(공2015상, 515)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
Where partner company employees perform technically skilled facility work and receive routine requests from the manufacturer's staff, at what point do those requests amount to substantial direction or command over the work itself?
A later Supreme Court decision holding that routine requests of this kind amounted to binding instructions would change this reading, as would an amendment to Article 2(i) of the Act on the Protection of Dispatched Workers. Record evidence showing binding instructions on the work itself or joint work in one work group with the manufacturer's employees would also require the entry to be read again.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
8 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on all 8 axes.
Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Seoul High Court, in its judgment of 8 October 2021 (2021Na2006479), held that the plaintiffs, employees of a partner company performing facility management at the defendant's hydrogen fuel-cell research institute, were not in a labour dispatch relationship with the defendant. It found that the defendant had not exercised substantial direction or command over their work, that facility management was plainly distinct from the institute's own core business, that the partner company independently decided selection, personnel, attendance and training, that the entrusted work was concretely scoped and required professional and technical skill, and that the partner company had its own organisation, facilities and other clients.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the appellate judgment contained no misreading of the law on the criteria for labour dispatch and no breach of the rules of logic and experience, so it stayed within the limits of free evaluation of the evidence. It dismissed all the appeals, placed the costs of the appeals on the plaintiffs, and did so by the unanimous decision of the four participating Justices, with Justice Cheo Dae-yeop presiding and Justice Min Yoo-sook as the Justice in charge.
Distinguishing conditions
- A case in which the third party gives binding instructions, directly or indirectly, on the worker's performance itself, so that substantial direction or command is made out.
- A case in which the workers form one work group with the third party's own employees and take part in direct joint work, so that they are substantially incorporated into the third party's business.
- A case in which, judged on all the circumstances together, the partner company does not independently decide selection, personnel, attendance and training, lacks its own organisation and facilities, or performs work whose scope is not concretely limited and cannot be distinguished from the third party's employees' work.
Record verification notes
Build the file around the substance of the relationship rather than the name of the contract: who gave instructions on the work itself, whether the workers joined one work group with the defendant's employees, who decided selection, hours, training and attendance, and whether the entrusted work had a concretely limited scope with professional or technical content. Confirm the partner company's independence by its own organisation, facilities and other contracts, since these were part of the finding below. The decision refers to Supreme Court Decision 2010Da106436, so that decision and the record on these points should be read together.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 원고용주가 근로자로 하여금 제3자를 위한 업무를 수행하도록 하는 경우, 파견근로자 보호 등에 관한 법률의 적용을 받는 ‘근로자파견’에 해당하는지 판단하는 기준 [2] 자동차 등을 제조·판매하는 갑 주식회사가 연구소의 시설관리업무를 협력업체에 위탁하여 왔는데, 협력업체 소속 근로자로서 위 연구소에서 시설관리업무를 수행한 을 등이 갑 회사를 상대로 근로자 지위 확인 등을 구한 사안에서, 갑 회사가 을 등의 업무수행에 관하여 상당한 지휘·명령을 하였다고 보기 어렵고, 을 등이 수행하는 시설관리업무가 연구소의 본연의 업무와 명백히 구별되는 등 제반 사정에 비추어 갑 회사와 을 등은 근로자파견관계에 해당하지 않는다고 본 원심판단을 수긍한 사례
Unofficial English translation
[1] Criteria for determining whether a case in which an employer has an employee perform work for a third party constitutes 'dispatch of workers' subject to the Act on the Protection, etc. of Temporary Agency Workers [2] A case in which A Corporation, which manufactures and sells automobiles, etc., had entrusted the facility management work of its research institute to a partner company, and B and others, employees of the partner company who performed the facility management work at the research institute, brought an action against A Corporation seeking confirmation of employee status, etc., where the court below, in light of all the circumstances, including that it is difficult to regard A Corporation as having exercised substantial direction and orders over the performance of work by B and others, and that the facility management work performed by B and others is clearly distinguishable from the research institute's inherent work, held that A Corporation and B and others were not in a worker dispatch relationship, and the Supreme Court affirmed that determination
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
상고를 모두 기각한다. 상고비용은 원고들이 부담한다.
Unofficial English translation
All appeals are dismissed. The plaintiffs shall bear the costs of the final appeal.
Provisions referred to
[1] 파견근로자 보호 등에 관한 법률 제2조 제1호 [2] 파견근로자 보호 등에 관한 법률 제2조 제1호
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
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