#8: Nissei Sangyo Case

Sapporo District Court May 26, 2020 (p.32, Rodo-hanrei #1232)

  This is a case in which an employee X, who was disciplinary dismissed by his employer company Y because he worked fraudulently, claimed the invalidity, and the court judged the dismissal to be invalid.

1. Corporate injustice
  In this case, Y's representative tried to persuade Y to retire voluntarily with implying that Y might disciplinary dismiss X, but X did not respond to this request, so Y counterfeited Y's minutes of meetings of the board of directors and internal approval documents, and wrongfully created X's disciplinary dismissal decision-making and the presence of injustice by X.
  As Y did so, it is natural that disciplinary dismissal would be null and void, and it is natural that X's claim for damages against Y would be approved.
  As a precedent, it is noteworthy that there are no specific case law presented, but that the courts point out and accumulate discrepancies and irrationalities in each material that has been carefully forged.   You may think that if Y falsified them more efficiently, the court decision would be change, but if Y did so, Y would suffer a different disadvantage, for example, by increasing the amount of damages.   There might have been a criminal complaint (see note below), but did X easily prove the wrongdoing without the help of the police?

2. Practical points
  Some presidents of one-man companies believe that employees can be controlled as if they were slaves.   I've heard the true feelings of some presidents that they were raising money for their employees.
  It is natural for such people to lose their minds and leave their minds.  In fact, in this case, many employees resigned due to the change of president, and X's intention to retire together was stopped.  This is an issue before the law and is the basis of management, but it can be said that the importance of the character of management has been confirmed.

※ Pointer
Crime of Counterfeiting of Documents (Chapter 17 of the Penal Code, Articles 154 to 161-2)
  In Japan, the scope of the crime for public documents is broad, but for private documents is narrow, i.e. which are related to rights and/or obligations, or to prove fact. Also about private documents, if the author prepares a document that differs from the facts (i.e. preparing a false document), the punishment will not be imposed.  Since Y and his representative who forged documents in this case are private persons, forged documents are private documents. So, the minutes of meetings of the board of directors and documents for internal approval are likely to meet to the requirement.
  In this case, because the authors were Y or the representative himself, they will not be subject to punishment.
  Even if you do not fall under the crime of forgery of documents, fraud using forged or false documents constitutes the crime of fraud.
  However, in this case, X was not deceived by the document.  Because documents were not a means of fraud, fraud would not constitute a crime.
  Given these circumstances, it is highly likely that the case was not considered a criminal case. This is another possible reason why X did not raise a criminal complaint.

※  Japanese original

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労働判例

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