The Chiba District Court has calculated the lost earnings of a Chinese trainee injured in a workplace accident up to age 67 at Japanese wage levels, a ruling experts call a landmark for how foreign workers' futures are valued in damages.
The judgment, dated September 4 and presided over by Judge Hisashi Oyori, found the company negligent in its duty to ensure safety and ordered it to pay about ¥9.6 million, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
The woman, in her 40s, had worked as a technical intern at the factory of a metal-processing company in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture, since April 2020. In April 2022, while operating a press machine that shapes metal sheets, her left hand was caught in the blade and her index finger was severed, among other injuries.
A future in Japan
On lost earnings — income the woman would have earned had the accident not happened — the court weighed several facts. After the accident she worked at a nursing care facility in Toyama Prefecture under the specified skills visa, known as "Specified Skilled Worker No. 1." She is training to obtain a care worker qualification and has passed N2, the second-hardest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
The court concluded she was highly likely to obtain the "nursing care" residence status, which has no upper limit on renewals, and to keep working in Japan. It therefore calculated her lost earnings to age 67 on the basis of Japanese wages.
In 1997, the Supreme Court set the standard for calculating lost earnings for foreign nationals. Courts weigh the purpose of the person's stay in Japan, the content of their residence status and the length of their permitted stay.
According to Tomo Tachibana, chair of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' Chiba chapter committee on the rights of foreign nationals, many past rulings held that technical interns would work in Japan for only a few years. Those decisions calculated damages on the premise that the workers would later earn wages in their home countries.
'A landmark ruling'
“The court carefully examined the reality of her abilities, experience and career development and judged that she was highly likely to keep working in Japan. It is a landmark ruling.”Tachibana, chair of the Chiba chapter committee on the rights of foreign nationals
Shoichi Ibusuki, a lawyer who has long worked on issues facing foreign workers, said the conventional approach of treating the period a foreign national can work in Japan as short also shrinks the damages companies must pay. The new judgment also has significance in pushing employers to improve safety management, he said.
The defendant company has appealed the ruling to the Tokyo High Court.