Whether a person eligible for medical care benefits and injury-disease compensation annuities may voluntarily suspend medical care and claim disability benefits (negative)

An employee who receives medical care benefits under the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act due to occupational accidents and at the same time receives injury-disease compensation annuities at the same time, may not refuse to receive medical care benefits and injury-disease compensation annuities and instead claim disability benefits, on the ground that he/she has completely cured the injury or disease at will.

Articles 40, 42, and 44 of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act

Cho Jae-man (Law Firm astronomical General Law Office, Attorney Jeong Tae-tae, Counsel for the defendant-appellant)

Korea Labor Welfare Corporation

Seoul High Court Decision 96Gu12865 delivered on September 17, 1996

The judgment below is reversed and the case is remanded to Seoul High Court.

The grounds of appeal are examined.

According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the court below presumed that disability benefits under the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (hereinafter referred to as the "Act") were cured by an employee's occupational injury or disease, but the injury or disease (hereinafter referred to as the " injury or disease") remains in proximate causal relation with the injury or disease in question, which refers to insurance benefits which make it impossible to expect the effect of treatment for the injury or disease or cause the disease to a fixed state of its symptoms. As such, when the symptoms are fixed, the treatment for preventing the aggravation of the fixed symptoms is not for the purpose of defending the injury or disease, but for preventing the aggravation of the fixed symptoms, even if the treatment for preventing the aggravation of the fixed symptoms is continued, it does not interfere with the cure of the injury or disease. In this case, while the deceased was employed as an employee of Southdo Development Corporation on March 7, 1985, the medical treatment was provided for a long time under the Act, but the treatment of the deceased was suspended due to the injury or disease's injury or the treatment of the deceased at the time of the merger was revoked.

An injury-disease compensation annuity under Article 44 of the Act is an insurance benefit which is paid in cases where a worker who received medical care benefits is in a state of uncured injury or disease after the second anniversary of the commencement of medical care, and the degree of disability caused by the injury or disease falls under the invalidity grade table under Article 39(1) [Attachment 4] of the Enforcement Decree of the Act, or where a person who received a disability compensation annuity as a whole loss of the labor force caused by an occupational accident is under medical care due to a recurrence of injury or disease. The above invalidity grade falls under Grades 1 through 3 of the disability grade table in [Attachment 2] under Article 31(1) of the Enforcement Decree of the Act, and the amount of injury-disease compensation annuity paid according to the invalidity grade [Attachment 2] under Article 44(2) of the Act is the same as the amount of disability compensation annuity paid pursuant to [Attachment 1] under Article 42(1) of the Act, and a certain requirements and procedure are required for the completion of medical care benefits (see Article 16 of the Act).

However, according to the records, the above deceased received insurance benefits under the law, such as medical care benefits and injury-disease compensation annuity, etc., for the part of the part part of the part part of the part part of the part part of the part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part of the part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part-time part.

Nevertheless, the judgment of the court below which judged that the disability benefit payment disposition of this case was illegal only for the reasons stated in its holding is erroneous, but it is erroneous in the misapprehension of legal principles as to mistake of facts or disability benefits due to violation of the rules of evidence. There is a ground to point this out.

Therefore, the judgment of the court below is reversed and the case is remanded to the court below. It is so decided as per Disposition by the assent of all participating Justices.

Justices Jeong Jong-ho (Presiding Justice)