Medical interns should be regarded as workers under the Labor Standard Law and should thus be guaranteed the minimum wage, the Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The top court's No. 2 Petty Bench handed down this judgment in respect of a case in which the family of a deceased intern had demanded that a hospital cover his unpaid wages.
It effectively orders Kansai Medical University, where he was assigned, to pay the plaintiffs some 400,000 yen.