Kia Motors' 1 Billion Won Damages Lawsuit
First Instance Court Recognized 172.93 Million Won
A second-instance court ruling has ordered union members who illegally occupied Kia Motors' Hwaseong plant in 2018 to pay the company 140 million won in damages. However, the amount recognized was less than that of the first instance.
On the 21st, the Seoul High Court Civil Division 38-3 (Presiding Judges Park Seong-yoon, Jeong Gyeong-geun, and Park Soon-young) ruled in the appeal trial of a damages claim lawsuit filed by Kia Motors against seven union members, including Kim Su-eok, former head of the Kia Motors irregular workers' branch of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, ordering "the defendants to jointly pay 140 million won." The amount recognized in the first instance was 172.93 million won.
Earlier, irregular workers belonging to in-house subcontractors at Kia Motors' Hwaseong plant staged an occupation protest by living and working in the plastic factory from August 30 to September 4, 2018, to prevent the illegal deployment of replacement workers. In response, Kia Motors filed a lawsuit on September 20 of the same year, demanding over 1 billion won in damages from the seven leaders of the occupation, claiming that the union members' occupation caused the bumper production line to halt, resulting in damages.
Kim, the former branch head, and others argued in court that "the occupation protest was a lawful industrial action and therefore there is no liability for damages, and since the subcontractor employees went on a full strike afterward, no additional damages occurred."
However, the first-instance court recognized the liability for damages, stating, "The defendants obstructed the plastic factory workers from performing bumper manufacturing work by intimidation, and this illegal act caused the entire factory production line to stop operating." Both Kia Motors and the executives filed appeals against the first-instance ruling.
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