Another Court Ruling Orders Japanese Firm to Compensate Victim of Wartime Forced Labor
An appellate court has ruled that a Japanese company must pay 80 million won in compensation to a 12-year-old girl who was a victim of forced mobilization during the Japanese colonial period. An appellate trial is the second stage of proceedings, contested by a party dissatisfied with the original verdict. According to the legal community on the 7th, the Civil Appeals Division 11-2 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Kwak Hyung-seop) upheld the lower court's ruling and dismissed Fujikoshi's appeal in the appellate stage of a damages lawsuit filed by the late Mr. Seo against Fujikoshi, a Japanese manufacturer of machine tools and components. The court ruled that Fujikoshi must pay 80 million won in compensation to Mr. Seo's side.
In February 1945, when she was 12 years old, Mr. Seo volunteered for the Joseon Women's Labor Corps after hearing an explanation from her Japanese homeroom teacher, and from March to August of that year she worked producing aircraft parts at a Fujikoshi factory in Toyama, Japan. She was never paid. Mr. Seo filed a lawsuit in 2020 seeking 100 million won in compensation. She died in May 2024, before the first-trial verdict was issued, and the lawsuit was continued by her children.
Fujikoshi argued that Korean courts lacked jurisdiction over the case and that Mr. Seo's claims had been extinguished under the 1965 Korea-Japan Claims Settlement Agreement. However, the first-trial court found that Korean courts had jurisdiction, reasoning that although Fujikoshi is a Japanese corporation, Mr. Seo was seeking to hold it liable for an unlawful act under South Korean civil law, and that the matter was closely tied to Korea's historical and political upheavals. Regarding the claims, the court also cited the Supreme Court's 2018 en banc ruling that the Korea-Japan Claims Settlement Agreement does not cover claims arising from unlawful acts such as forced mobilization.
The first-trial court pointed out, "The deceased, at a young age, was deceived systematically by the Japanese government and Fujikoshi into joining the Labor Corps without being properly informed of the working conditions or treatment." The court further found that "Fujikoshi severely suppressed the deceased's freedom and forced her into labor, which constitutes an inhumane unlawful act directly connected to the Japanese government's illegal colonial rule and its prosecution of a war of aggression at the time."
The appellate court upheld the original ruling, stating, "Even upon re-examining all the evidence submitted in the first and second trials, the first trial's factual findings and judgments are justified."
