Nippon Metal President and CEO Eiji Hashimoto attends a press convention on the firm headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, Jan. 7. EPA-Yonhap
The Supreme Courtroom on Thursday upheld a decrease court docket ruling ordering Nippon Metal to pay compensation to the household of a late Korean pressured into wartime labor throughout Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule.
It marked the highest court docket’s first ruling on instances involving pressured labor victims filed since its landmark 2018 ruling that Japanese firms are chargeable for damages to such victims.
The highest court docket upheld the order for Nippon Metal to pay 100 million received ($67,900) in compensation to the household of the Korean sufferer.
The newest ruling got here after the 4 kids of the late sufferer, Jeong Hyeong-pal, filed the lawsuit in opposition to Nippon Metal in 2019, in search of 200 million received in damages.
Jeong had mentioned he was pressured into labor at a metal mill in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, from 1940 to 1942.
The case underwent years of authorized wrangling, with Nippon Metal arguing the statute of limitations had handed.
The statute of limitations for many civil claims is 10 years however exceptions apply within the occasion there are “goal causes that make it unattainable to resolve an incapacity.”
Whereas a decrease court docket sided in opposition to Jeong’s household in 2021, an appellate court docket overturned the ruling final yr, recognizing the 2018 Supreme Courtroom resolution as the purpose when the impediment to the statute of limitations was cleared and rejecting the Japanese firm’s declare.
For the reason that 2018 ruling, courts have dominated in favor of victims of pressured labor in a number of instances.
