Japanese court says Toyota employee died of overwork

The Nagoya District Court ruled that Kenichi Uchino had worked some 106 hours of overtime in the month before he died after collapsing at a Toyota Motor Corp. plant in February 2002 aged just 30.

His wife argued that long working hours caused her husband to develop an abnormal heart rhythm, but her application for bereaved family benefits was rejected by the labor ministry, which said the death was not due to overwork.

A local labor standards inspection office, part of the ministry, estimated Uchino’s overtime during the month before his death was about 45 hours.

But the court rejected the figure and upheld his wife’s claim for benefits, ordering a local labor standards office to retract its decision, a court spokeswoman said.

Presiding Judge Toshiro Tamiya said Uchino “was so tired that he could not play with his children,” Kyodo News reported.

Officials at the labor office declined to comment, saying they had yet to officially hear of the verdict. Toyota Motor also declined to comment on the ruling, saying that the dispute was between the former employee and the government.

The growing auto giant offered its “deepest sympathies” for the death and vowed to make greater efforts to help employees stay in good health. Death from overwork became such a common phenomenon as Japan built from the ashes of World War II into the world’s second largest economy that it has its own word, “karoshi.”

Critics say the problem is again worsening as Japan’s economy recovers from recession, with pressure growing on workers to put in long hours and job security declining.

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