1. The defendant's appeal is dismissed.

2. The costs of appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.

Purport of claim and appeal

1..

1. According to the purport of the Plaintiff’s evidence No. 1 and the entire pleadings as to the cause of the claim, the Plaintiff’s membership as the Defendant’s employee on October 15, 2013 and served until his/her retirement on August 30, 2017, and the Plaintiff’s failure to receive wages of KRW 39,330,000 and retirement allowances of KRW 11,507,70 from July 1, 2016 to August 30, 2017 may be recognized.

Therefore, the Defendant is obligated to pay to the Plaintiff the sum of the unpaid wages and retirement allowances (=39,30,000 won 11,507,770 won) and damages for delay calculated at the rate of 20% per annum from September 14, 2017 to the date of full payment, as requested by the Plaintiff, after the fourteenth day from the date of withdrawal to the date of full payment.

2. Judgment on the defendant's assertion

A. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant settled the unpaid wages and retirement allowances at KRW 30,000 and agreed to receive them after the completion of the defendant's real estate development project. However, there is no evidence to acknowledge this, the defendant's allegation in this part is without merit.

B. The defendant asserts that KRW 5,347,480, which was lent to the plaintiff, is offset against the plaintiff's wage and retirement allowance claim.

On the other hand, according to the main sentence of Article 43(1) of the Labor Standards Act, since wages are paid in full directly to an employee in currency, it is in principle that the employer does not offset the employee’s wage against the employee’s wage claim. This also holds true since the retirement allowance that the employee is paid has the nature of wage.

(See Supreme Court Decisions 88Meu26413 Decided May 8, 1990; 2001Da25184 Decided October 23, 2001; and 2007Da90760 Decided May 20, 201, etc.). Therefore, the Defendant’s allegation of offset is without merit without further review.

C. The Defendant’s wage claim incurred before February 8, 2015, which was three years later since the filing date of the instant lawsuit, was complete.