Law "Unapproved Business Trips and Tardiness as Grounds for Dismissal of Long-term Employees... Unfair"

Suddenly Criticizing Previously Accepted Practices
... Violates Fairness

The court ruled that the company's dismissal of a long-term contributing employee solely for reasons such as unauthorized business trips and tardiness was unfair.

Seoul Administrative Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

According to the legal community on the 13th, the Seoul Administrative Court Administrative Division 14 (Presiding Judge Lee Sang-hoon) recently ruled against the plaintiff in the first trial of the lawsuit filed by employee A against the chairman of the Central Labor Relations Commission, seeking cancellation of the retrial decision on unfair dismissal.

Employee A, who joined the company in January 2016, was notified of dismissal in June 2020. The company explained the reasons for dismissal as "unauthorized business trips and receipt submissions," "non-compliance and refusal of educational work instructions," "unauthorized use of annual leave and poor work attitude such as tardiness (frequent tardiness and long-term unauthorized absences)," and "disrupting the company atmosphere due to inappropriate behavior within the workplace."

In March 2021, the Central Labor Relations Commission judged that "the severity of the disciplinary action for the recognized reasons is excessive," and "the dismissal is unfair." The company filed a lawsuit against the commission's decision, arguing that "the reasons for dismissal actually exist and the trust between employee A and the company has been seriously damaged."

The first trial court agreed with the commission's judgment. While acknowledging most of the dismissal reasons claimed by the company, it concluded that, by social standards, the employment relationship was not irreparably broken.

The court stated, "Employee A's business trips were publicly conducted through the department's group KakaoTalk chatroom, and the processing of trip-related expenses was done according to existing work practices." It added, "'Unauthorized business trips' are merely procedural violations related to work."

Furthermore, the court pointed out, "The company did not consider employee A's late arrivals due to a long commute problematic for a long time," and "Suddenly imposing severe disciplinary action for reasons that were not previously an issue is unfair."

The court also took into account that employee A failed to follow work instructions only once, and that the remarks classified by the company as "inappropriate behavior" did not significantly affect corporate order.