Claiming compensation from the air conditioner installer who “did not prevent the fire”… Law: “No fault”

Police point to air conditioner as cause of fire
Insurance company: “We must compensate for the insurance money paid”
Court: Preventive measures alone cannot prevent

A court ruled that if a fire occurred due to a defect in an air conditioner, the installer could not be held responsible.

On the 2nd of last month, the Western Branch of the Busan District Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Mr. A, a man in his 30s, against insurance company B for non-existence of debt.

Mr. A, who worked as an air conditioner installation engineer, installed an air conditioner in a local apartment in 2020. The problem arose two years later when a fire broke out in this apartment. At the time, Company B paid insurance money to the victim, but then suddenly claimed 40 million won in compensation from Mr. A. Based on the results of a police investigation that identified the air conditioner as the cause of the fire, Company B claimed that Mr. A did not take fire prevention measures when installing the air conditioner.

On the other hand, Mr. A refuted that the cause of the fire was ‘tracking (a phenomenon in which sparks occur from moisture, dust, etc. in the area where electric current flows).’ At the same time, he emphasized that the old age of the product and the user's negligence in management led to the fire.

The court ruled in Mr. A’s favor. The court said, “When installing an air conditioner, the plaintiff needs to prevent tracking, such as preventing corrosion of terminals due to moisture and poor contact,” and added, “The air conditioner that the plaintiff installed at the time was already well past its expiration date, and there was usually a lot of moisture inside the air conditioner connection box.”

He also added, “Since it is not possible to completely prevent tracking from occurring just by taking preventive measures when installing an air conditioner, it cannot be said that the accident occurred due to the plaintiff’s negligence.”

Attorney Wooyoung Jeong of Daeryun Law Firm, who represented Mr. A, explained, “In a lawsuit to confirm the existence of a financial debt, if the debtor makes a claim denying the cause of the debt, the creditor has the responsibility to prove the right relationship. Company B claimed that Mr. A did not fulfill his obligation to explain regular inspection and cleanliness to the user, but the court judged that it would be difficult to admit that this caused the fire.”

Digital Content Team

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Compensation requested from air conditioner installer who “did not prevent fire”… Law “No fault” (Shortcut)