Attorney, what is a serious accident?

Hello. I am an industrial accident attorney at Daeryun Law LLC. You have asked about serious accidents.

A serious accident refers to a case in which an industrial accident is severe, such as the death of a worker.

According to the Act on the Punishment of Serious Accidents, which took effect in 2022, serious accidents occurring during work are specified as follows.

① A case in which one or more deaths occur

② A case in which, from the same accident, two or more injured persons requiring at least 6 months of treatment occur

③ A case in which three or more persons with an occupational disease, such as acute poisoning, occur within 1 year due to the same harmful factor

A business owner must take measures to prevent such serious accidents and to stop their recurrence.

First, the owner must secure the personnel and budget necessary for accident prevention and establish a safety and health management system.

If an accident has occurred, the owner must establish measures to prevent its recurrence and take immediate action.

In addition, if the state has issued matters such as improvement or corrective orders, the owner must comply with them without fail.

If a serious accident occurs because such measures were not taken, the business owner may be punished.

As in item ① above, if a death occurs, the owner is punished by imprisonment for at least 1 year or a fine of up to 1 billion won.

In addition, if the grounds under items ② and ③ apply, the owner may be punished by imprisonment for up to 7 years or a fine of up to 100 million won.

Therefore, it is important to establish thorough measures so that serious accidents do not occur.

In order to respond to such serious accidents, I recommend that you prepare by obtaining legal advice from an industrial accident attorney.