KYOTO (Kyodo) The operator of the major restaurant chain Nihonkai Shoya and its four top managers were ordered Tuesday to pay about ¥78.6 million in damages to the parents of an employee who died of overwork. The Kyoto District Court's decision was the first in Japan finding the top management of a major corporation liable for damages in a suit involving death by overwork, or "karoshi," according to attorney Tadashi Matsumaru. The parents of Motoyasu Fukiage, 24, who died while employed at a Nihonkai Shoya outlet in Shiga Prefecture, had filed a ¥100 million damages suit against operator Daisyo Corp., its president, Tatsu Taira, and other managers.
Presiding Judge Shinichi Oshima said Daisyo failed to properly take into account its employees' working hours, noting it set salaries under the premise that employees would work 80 hours of overtime a month, equivalent to the government criteria for determining karoshi.
Fukiage worked at the Nihonkai Shoya outlet in Shiga after joining the company in April 2007. He died that August from acute heart failure while sleeping at home, after working an average of 112 hours of overtime per month.