Japan Press Weekly

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2015 February 4 - 10 [LABOR]

Court: cellphone salesperson died from overwork

The Osaka District Court on February 4 acknowledged the death of a worker of a cellphone-trading giant as work-related and caused by long-term excessive workloads.

The Tokyo-based Hikari Tsushin worker, while on temporary assignment to a subsidiary, died of heart failure at the age of 33 in February 2010. His parents filed a claim for workman’s compensation as death from overwork (karoshi) with a local Labor Standards Inspection Office, but the case was brought to the court because the labor authority had rejected the bereaved family’s claim.

The number of months he had worked more than 100 hours overtime was 15 over the three years before his death, and he had had to handle customer complaints in the last six months before his death.

The court pointed out that the worker had been in a state of extreme fatigue and suffering from considerable mental stress.

After the ruling, the mother said, “I feel relieved now. I want labor law enforcement offices to do their job by fairly looking at the side of workers.”

Past related article:
> Bereaved families of workers who died from overwork call for improvement in workers’ compensation process [November 30, 2014]