Open Decision Ledger · Criminal law
Counting all workers in one economic unit under the Serious Disaster Act
Supreme Court, Jan. 29, 2026, 2025Do15060 (judgment)
Case name: 산업안전보건법위반·중대재해처벌등에관한법률위반(산업재해치사)
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where a head office, branch or factory is geographically separate but does not operate its personnel, labour, finance or accounting independently, and a serious industrial accident occurs at only one of them, must the regular workers of every organisation making up that single economic and social unit be counted together to decide whether the Serious Disaster Punishment Act applies?
Holding
Yes, in principle. The Act contains no provision that divides or separates its unit of application by the place where the disaster occurred, so ‘business or workplace’ in Article 3 and Article 1, paragraph 1, proviso of the Supplementary Provisions means, in principle, an economic and social unit of activity operated organically as one business. Unless there are other special circumstances, the Act's application must be decided by adding together the regular workers of all the organisations constituting that unit, even though the serious industrial accident occurred at only one of them.
Summary of the holding, verbatim
중대재해처벌법 제3조 및 부칙 제1조 제1항 단서의 ‘사업 또는 사업장’이란 원칙적으로 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’를 의미한다고 보아야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
The 'business or place of business' under Article 3 of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and the proviso to Article 1 (1) of the Addendum must, in principle, be regarded as meaning 'an economic and social activity unit that forms a single whole in terms of business operations and is operated organically.'
Disposition
Dismissed Stated in the decision
상고를 모두 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
All appeals are dismissed.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
중대재해처벌법 제3조 및 부칙 제1조 제1항 단서의 ‘사업 또는 사업장’이란 원칙적으로 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’를 의미한다고 보아야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
The 'business or place of business' under Article 3 of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and the proviso to Article 1 (1) of the Addendum must, in principle, be regarded as meaning 'an economic and social activity unit that forms a single whole in terms of business operations and is operated organically.'
Factors
- 그리고 이 법은 그 적용 단위를 중대재해가 발생한 장소별로 구분하거나 분리하는 취지의 규정을 두고 있지는 않다.
- 그 인사 및 노무관리, 재무·회계 처리 등이 독립적으로 운영되지 아니한 채 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’의 한 부분에 불과하다면
- 개별 조직이 장소적으로 분리되어 있더라도
- 다른 특별한 사정이 없는 한 그 경제적, 사회적 활동단위를 구성하는 조직들 전부의 상시 근로자 수를 모두 합산하여 중대재해처벌법의 적용 여부를 결정하여야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
• And this Act contains no provision purporting to divide or separate its unit of application by the place where a serious accident occurred.
• if the personnel and labor management, financial and accounting processing, etc. are not operated independently and it constitutes merely a part of 'an economic and social activity unit that forms a single whole in terms of business operations and is operated organically,'
• even where individual organizations are spatially separated,
• unless there are special circumstances to the contrary, the applicability of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act must be determined by aggregating the number of employees regularly employed by all of the organizations constituting that economic and social activity unit.
Relation to precedent
States a new standard Read from the decision
이와 같은 중대재해처벌법의 제정 이유, 규율 대상, 적용 범위 등에 비추어 보면, 중대재해처벌법 제3조 및 부칙 제1조 제1항 단서의 ‘사업 또는 사업장’이란 원칙적으로 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’를 의미한다고 보아야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
In light of the reasons for the enactment of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act as described above, the matters it regulates, the scope of its application, and the like, the 'business or place of business' under Article 3 of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and the proviso to Article 1 (1) of the Addendum must, in principle, be regarded as meaning 'an economic and social activity unit that forms a single whole in terms of business operations and is operated organically.'
Decisions referred to
해당 본문 참조
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
What special circumstances would make it unnecessary to add up the regular workers of all the organisations constituting the economic and social unit?
A later decision specifying what counts as the special circumstances the summary reserves, or the Court's treatment of an organisation with genuinely independent administration, would require this entry to be read again. An amendment to Article 3 or Article 1, paragraph 1, proviso of the Supplementary Provisions of the Serious Disaster Punishment Act, in particular to its employee threshold, would also change the calculation.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-24
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 6 (relation to precedent).
Axis 6 (Relation to precedent): Primary “States a new standard” vs Independent “Cannot be determined”
The primary reading treats the holding as a new standard for business or workplace under this Act, while the independent reading could not confirm any prior precedent from the text.
이와 같은 중대재해처벌법의 제정 이유, 규율 대상, 적용 범위 등에 비추어 보면, 중대재해처벌법 제3조 및 부칙 제1조 제1항 단서의 ‘사업 또는 사업장’이란 원칙적으로 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’를 의미한다고 보아야 한다.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 Daejeon District Court, sitting on appeal, in its judgment of 27 August 2025 (2025No860), proceeded on the footing that the ○○2 plant where the accident occurred, the head office and the ○○ plant of Defendant Company △△△ all formed one economic and social unit of activity operated organically as a single business, and applied the Serious Disaster Punishment Act to the defendants, convicting them.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court found no error warranting reversal, although it noted that some parts of the lower court's reasoning were not entirely appropriate. Taking the circumstances properly admitted at first instance against the law it had just stated, it held that the court below had not misunderstood the meaning or the criteria for ‘a business or workplace with fewer than 50 regular workers’ in Article 1, paragraph 1, proviso of the Supplementary Provisions, nor misread the law on the meaning and scope of a business owner or person responsible for management under Article 2(ix)(a) and Article 4. It also held that the argument that only the ○○2 plant had fewer than 50 regular workers, not made a ground of appeal below and not taken up by the court below on its own motion, was not a lawful ground of appeal, and in any event could not be accepted. All appeals were dismissed by the unanimous opinion of the Justices.
Distinguishing conditions
- A separate organisation that runs its own personnel and labour management and its own finance and accounting independently, so that it is not merely a part of a single economic and social unit.
- A case in which special circumstances exist, since the Court required aggregation only ‘unless there are other special circumstances’.
- An argument that a single worksite has fewer than 50 regular workers, raised for the first time on appeal to the Supreme Court without being a ground of appeal below.
Record verification notes
Set out every organisation of the company, head office, branches and plants alike, and gather what shows whether each one has its own personnel, labour, finance and accounting administration. Then add up the regular workers of all of them, not only of the site where the accident happened, and compare the total with the threshold in Article 1, paragraph 1, proviso of the Supplementary Provisions. Finally, confirm that the point was raised before the court below, since a ground first raised on appeal to the Supreme Court was held not to be lawful here.
From the official text
Points at issue
중대재해 처벌 등에 관한 법률 제3조 및 부칙 제1조 제1항 단서에서 정한 ‘사업 또는 사업장’의 의미(=원칙적으로 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’) / 본사, 지점, 공장 등의 개별 조직이 장소적으로 분리되어 있으나 인사 및 노무관리, 재무·회계 처리 등이 독립적으로 운영되지 아니한 채 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’의 한 부분에 불과한 경우, 개별 조직 중 한 곳에서 중대산업재해가 발생하였더라도 경제적, 사회적 활동단위를 구성하는 조직들 전부의 상시 근로자 수를 모두 합산하여 중대재해 처벌 등에 관한 법률의 적용 여부를 결정하여야 하는지 여부(원칙적 적극)
Unofficial English translation
The meaning of 'business or place of business' as provided in Article 3 of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and the proviso to Article 1 (1) of the Addendum (= in principle, 'an economic and social activity unit that forms a single whole in terms of business operations and is operated organically') / Where individual organizations such as a head office, branch, or factory are spatially separated, yet the personnel and labor management, financial and accounting processing, etc. are not operated independently and constitute merely a part of 'an economic and social activity unit that forms a single whole in terms of business operations and is operated organically,' whether the applicability of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act must be determined by aggregating the number of employees regularly employed by all of the organizations constituting the economic and social activity unit, even where a serious industrial accident has occurred at one of the individual organizations (in principle, affirmative)
Summary of the holding
중대재해 처벌 등에 관한 법률(이하 ‘중대재해처벌법’이라 한다)은 안전·보건 조치의무를 위반하여 중대산업재해나 중대시민재해를 야기한 사업주와 경영책임자 및 법인에 대한 처벌 등을 규정함으로써, 근로자를 포함한 종사자와 일반 시민의 안전권을 확보하고, 기업의 조직문화 또는 안전관리 시스템 미비로 인해 일어나는 중대재해사고를 사전에 방지하려는 취지에서 2021. 1. 26. 제정된 법률이다. 그에 따라 이 법은 안전 및 보건 확보의무의 주체로 사업체나 법인 또는 기관의 최상부 또는 최종적 의사결정권자(사업주 또는 경영책임자 등)를 포함시키면서, 이들에 대하여 엄중한 형사책임 등을 규정하고 있다(제4조, 제6조, 제9조, 제10조 등). 그리고 이 법은 그 적용 단위를 중대재해가 발생한 장소별로 구분하거나 분리하는 취지의 규정을 두고 있지는 않다. 이와 같은 중대재해처벌법의 제정 이유, 규율 대상, 적용 범위 등에 비추어 보면, 중대재해처벌법 제3조 및 부칙 제1조 제1항 단서의 ‘사업 또는 사업장’이란 원칙적으로 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’를 의미한다고 보아야 한다. 본사, 지점, 공장 등의 개별 조직이 장소적으로 분리되어 있더라도, 그 인사 및 노무관리, 재무·회계 처리 등이 독립적으로 운영되지 아니한 채 ‘경영상의 일체를 이루면서 유기적으로 운영되는 경제적, 사회적 활동단위’의 한 부분에 불과하다면, 개별 조직 중 한 곳에서 중대산업재해가 발생한 경우에도 다른 특별한 사정이 없는 한 그 경제적, 사회적 활동단위를 구성하는 조직들 전부의 상시 근로자 수를 모두 합산하여 중대재해처벌법의 적용 여부를 결정하여야 한다.
Order
상고를 모두 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
All appeals are dismissed.
Provisions referred to
중대재해 처벌 등에 관한 법률 제1조, 제2조, 제3조, 제4조, 제6조, 제9조, 제10조, 부칙(2021. 1. 26.) 제1조 제1항
Read 2026-10-24 · Cross-read 2026-10-24. 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.
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