The Supreme Court ended a 19-year legal battle Tuesday by endorsing a lower court decision ordering the state and a mining company to compensate former coal miners in Fukuoka Prefecture who contracted pneumoconiosis by inhaling mine dust.
The Supreme Court ruling finalized the government's defeat in a pneumoconiosis compensation case for the first time, and could affect another case pending at the Sapporo High Court.
The No. 3 petty bench of the Supreme Court turned down appeals by the government and Tokyo-based Nittetsu Mining Co. against the Fukuoka High Court ruling that ordered them to pay a total 560 million yen in damages to 200 plaintiffs for the suffering endured by former miners at a coal mine in the prefecture's Chikuho region.