Open Decision Ledger · Criminal law
Weighing an employer's neglect under the Medical Act's dual-liability rule
Supreme Court, Dec. 14, 2023, 2023Do8341 (judgment)
Case name: 의료법위반[의료인의 진료기록부 등 허위 작성 행위 처벌과 관련된 양벌규정의 취지]
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Under Article 91 of the former Medical Act, when a medical worker falsifies or knowingly alters a medical record, by what standard is it decided whether the employer corporation or individual neglected the due care or supervision required to be punished under that dual-liability rule?
Holding
Punishing the employer under the dual-liability rule rests on the employer's own fault, since the principle of personal responsibility in punishment means the employer must have neglected due care or supervision in the business in which the violation occurred. Whether that neglect occurred is decided by weighing all circumstances connected with the violation, including the legislative purpose, the degree of harm to the protected legal interest expected from breaching the penal clause, the concrete form of the violation and the harm actually caused, the scale of the employer's business, the possibility of supervising the actor or the concrete supervisory relationship, and the preventive measures the employer actually took. The defendant's appeal against the conviction applying that rule was dismissed.
Summary of the holding, verbatim
법률의 입법 취지, 처벌조항 위반으로 예상되는 법익 침해의 정도, 그 위반행위에 관하여 양벌조항을 마련한 취지 등은 물론 위반행위의 구체적인 모습과 그로 인하여 실제 야기된 피해 또는 결과의 정도, 법인 또는 개인의 영업 규모, 행위자에 대한 감독가능성 또는 구체적인 지휘감독 관계, 법인 또는 개인이 위반행위 방지를 위하여 실제 행한 조치 등을 전체적으로 종합하여 판단해야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
The legislative purpose of the Act, the degree of infringement of legal interests anticipated from a violation of the penal provision, the purport of enacting the joint penalty provision for such violation, and, indeed, the specific circumstances of the violation and the degree of harm or consequences actually caused thereby, the scale of the business of the corporation or individual, the possibility of supervising the actor or the specific relationship of command and supervision, the measures actually taken by the corporation or individual to prevent the violation, and the like must be comprehensively assessed in their entirety.
Disposition
Dismissed Stated in the decision
상고를 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed.
Form of the test
Circumstances weighed Stated in the decision
법인 또는 개인이 위반행위 방지를 위하여 실제 행한 조치 등을 전체적으로 종합하여 판단해야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
The measures actually taken by the corporation or individual to prevent the violation, and the like must be comprehensively assessed in their entirety.
Factors
- 법률의 입법 취지
- 처벌조항 위반으로 예상되는 법익 침해의 정도
- 위반행위의 구체적인 모습과 그로 인하여 실제 야기된 피해 또는 결과의 정도
- 행위자에 대한 감독가능성 또는 구체적인 지휘감독 관계
- 법인 또는 개인이 위반행위 방지를 위하여 실제 행한 조치
Unofficial English translation
• The legislative purpose of the Act
• The degree of infringement of legal interests anticipated from a violation of the penal provision
• The specific circumstances of the violation and the degree of harm or consequences actually caused thereby
• The possibility of supervising the actor or the specific relationship of command and supervision
• The measures actually taken by the corporation or individual to prevent the violation
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2010. 4. 29. 선고 2009도7017 판결
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2009Do7017 decided April 29, 2010
Decisions referred to
대법원 2010. 4. 29. 선고 2009도7017 판결(공2010상, 1065), 대법원 2021. 9. 30. 선고 2019도3595 판결(공2021하, 2144)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
How much education, staffing or supervision must a hospital of a given size show before its measures count as due care and supervision not neglected?
A later Supreme Court decision applying Article 91 of the Medical Act as amended by Act No. 16555 of 27 August 2019, or a decision weighing concrete preventive measures such as record-writing training and substitute staffing, would require this entry to be read again. The same applies to any amendment of the dual-liability provision itself.
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 Incheon District Court, sitting on appeal, in its judgment of 2 June 2023 (2022No826), left standing the first-instance judgment convicting the defendant under the dual-liability rule. The court below found that the defendant had established and operated a hospital in Michuhol-gu, Incheon; that the hospital's nurses falsely recorded which nurse had worked or the content of the nursing in nursing records; and that the defendant had given the nurses no education on how to write nursing records and had secured no substitute nurses, so that substitutes were hard to find when nurses took leave. It held that these failings of the defendant caused the falsification and amounted to neglect of due care or supervision in the business in which the violation occurred.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court found no error in the reasoning below. Reading it against the applicable law and the lawfully admitted evidence, it held that the court below had not violated the rules of logic and experience, had not stepped outside the limits of free evaluation, and had not misunderstood the interpretation or application of Article 91 of the former Medical Act. It dismissed the appeal, on the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Distinguishing conditions
- A case in which the employer corporation or individual did not neglect the due care and supervision required to prevent the violation in that business, so that the proviso to Article 91 applies and no punishment follows.
- An act of falsifying a record committed outside the employer's business, since Article 91 attaches only to a violation committed in relation to the business of that corporation or individual.
- A violation of a provision of the Medical Act other than Articles 87, 88, 88-2, 89 and 90, since Article 91 lists those provisions and no others.
Record verification notes
Because the Court required a holistic weighing of every circumstance, the file should be read for what the employer actually did: education or training on writing records, staffing and substitute arrangements, the scale of the business, and the concrete supervisory relationship with each person who made the entry. Set the concrete form of the falsified entries and the harm they actually caused against those measures, since the decision requires all circumstances to be weighed overall.
From the official text
Points at issue
의료인이 진료기록부 등을 거짓으로 작성하거나 고의로 사실과 다르게 추가기재·수정하는 행위와 관련하여, 구 의료법 제91조 양벌규정에 따라 사용자인 법인 또는 개인을 처벌하는 취지 및 이때 사용자인 법인 또는 개인이 상당한 주의 또는 감독 의무를 게을리하였는지 판단하는 기준
Unofficial English translation
The purport of punishing a corporation or individual who is the employer pursuant to the joint penalty provision of former Article 91 of the Medical Service Act, in connection with an act by which a medical practitioner falsely prepares medical records, etc., or intentionally adds or amends entries contrary to fact, and the criteria for determining whether such corporation or individual who is the employer has neglected its duty of reasonable care or supervision
Summary of the holding
구 의료법(2019. 8. 27. 법률 제16555호로 개정되기 전의 것) 제22조 제3항은 "의료인은 진료기록부 등을 거짓으로 작성하거나 고의로 사실과 다르게 추가기재·수정하여서는 아니 된다."라고 규정하고 있고, 같은 법 제88조 제1호는 ‘제22조 제3항을 위반한 자를 3년 이하의 징역이나 3천만 원 이하의 벌금에 처한다.’고 규정하고 있다. 또한 같은 법 제91조는 "법인의 대표자나 법인 또는 개인의 대리인, 사용인, 그 밖의 종업원이 그 법인 또는 개인의 업무에 관하여 제87조, 제88조, 제88조의2, 제89조 또는 제90조의 위반행위를 하면 그 행위자를 벌하는 외에 그 법인 또는 개인에게도 해당 조문의 벌금형을 과한다. 다만 법인 또는 개인이 그 위반행위를 방지하기 위하여 해당 업무에 관하여 상당한 주의와 감독을 게을리하지 아니한 경우에는 그러하지 아니하다."라고 규정하고 있다. 이러한 양벌규정에 따라 사용자인 법인 또는 개인을 처벌하는 것은 형벌의 자기책임 원칙에 비추어 위반행위가 발생한 그 업무와 관련하여 사용자인 법인 또는 개인이 상당한 주의 또는 감독 의무를 게을리한 과실이 있기 때문이다. 이때 사용자인 법인 또는 개인이 상당한 주의 또는 감독 의무를 게을리하였는지는 해당 위반행위와 관련된 모든 사정, 즉 법률의 입법 취지, 처벌조항 위반으로 예상되는 법익 침해의 정도, 그 위반행위에 관하여 양벌조항을 마련한 취지 등은 물론 위반행위의 구체적인 모습과 그로 인하여 실제 야기된 피해 또는 결과의 정도, 법인 또는 개인의 영업 규모, 행위자에 대한 감독가능성 또는 구체적인 지휘감독 관계, 법인 또는 개인이 위반행위 방지를 위하여 실제 행한 조치 등을 전체적으로 종합하여 판단해야 한다.
Order
상고를 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed.
Provisions referred to
구 의료법(2019. 8. 27. 법률 제16555호로 개정되기 전의 것) 제22조 제3항, 제88조 제1호, 제91조
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.
Back to the ledger