1. Case Overview

During concrete pouring work at a new logistics warehouse construction site, a two-tiered jack support buckled, and the concrete was poured using a push method, which led to an eccentric load on the structure without proper load distribution. Consequently, the deck plates collapsed, causing workers of a subcontractor engaged in the concrete pouring to fall, resulting in the death of three workers and serious injuries to two others.

 

The prosecutor charged a total of 18 individuals, including the contractor company, the site manager, and employees, as well as supervisors, subcontractors, and their employees, with violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, negligent manslaughter, and other charges. We represented the contractor company A (the "Contractor Company"), and its employees, site manager B, construction manager C, and safety manager D, from the investigation stage through the first trial. The subcontractors confessed during the investigation stage while shifting all responsibility onto Company A, seeking leniency, with a substantial risk that Defendant B, the site manager, could face imprisonment based on precedents.

 

2. Court's Decision
[Pyeongtaek Branch of the Suwon District Court Decision 2023Godan 613, 1452 (Consolidated), dated September 24, 2024]

 

The court sentenced the Contractor Company to a fine of KRW15 million. Defendant B, the site manager of the Contractor Company, received one-year and six-month imprisonment with labor and a 3-year suspension; Defendant C, the construction manager, received one-year imprisonment with a two-year suspension; and Defendant D, the safety manager, received eight-month imprisonment with a two-year suspension.

 

3. Our Argument and Role

 

Throughout the investigation and first trial, all other defendants, excluding Defendants A, B, C, and D, admitted to their actions while requesting leniency, attempting to shift all responsibility onto the contractor.

 

We argued that, according to Article 63 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, it was unreasonable to impose the same specific and direct safety and health obligations on the Construction Company and its employees B, C, and D as on the subcontractors. We also argued that the jack support installed in the accident area did not qualify as a "temporary support" under the Occupational Safety and Health regulations, making it impossible to establish a violation of safety obligations on this basis. Furthermore, We asserted that the primary cause of the accident was due to the subcontractors’ and their employees' negligence, and it was difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt a causal relationship between the contractor’s negligence and the death or injury of the workers.

 

In response, the court accepted most of the charges against the defendants but ruled that: ① interpreting Article 332.7 of the old Safety and Health Regulations that was applied to "steel pipes used as temporary supports (excluding pipe supports)" as extending to jack supports without a specific legal basis constitutes an overly broad or analogical interpretation, which is inconsistent with the principle of legality, and ② since the accident area was not inherently a place with a risk of falling, it was not legally mandatory for the workers performing concrete pouring in that area to wear safety harnesses or take other fall-prevention measures.

 

Furthermore, we tried to emphasize in the first trial that the subcontractors' negligence significantly contributed to the accident. Subcontractor E and its employees disregarded the contractor's instructions by using the "push" method for concrete pouring, and subcontractor F and its employees connected and installed jack supports in two tiers without structural review, which was a major contributing factor to the accident. Through rigorous cross-examinations, we highlighted that the subcontractors' negligence played a significant role in the accident.

 

As a result, the court found not only the contractor but also the subcontractors significantly responsible for the accident. Notably, subcontractor F's executive G, who held final decision-making authority over the jack support installation, received one-year and six-month imprisonment with a three-year suspension, reflecting the same level of criminal liability as the Contractor Company's site manager B.

 

- Attorneys involved: Park Sung-Ho, Kim Ji-Hee, Lee Chan-Woong, Lee Yun-Sang, Sim Hyuna, and Choi Young-Su