Manager denied taking items until CCTV footage exposed him; court overturns labor commission ruling that found dismissal excessive
A court has ruled that the dismissal of an SRT (Suseo High-Speed Railway) cabin manager who pocketed cash and a luxury wallet left behind by a passenger was justified.
Seoul Administrative Court's First Administrative Division, presided over by Judge Yang Sang-yun, ruled Monday in favor of SR — the operator of SRT — in its lawsuit seeking to overturn a National Labor Relations Commission ruling that had found the dismissal unfair.
The ruling reverses the commission's earlier finding that dismissal was too severe a punishment.
The cabin manager, identified only as A, was checking for remaining passengers and lost items at the train's final stop when a carriage cleaner handed him a sports-brand crossbody bag left on a seat. Inside the bag were a luxury bifold wallet valued at 550,000 won ($410), wireless earphones, credit and debit cards, and about 1.25 million won in cash, including Japanese yen.
Instead of handing the bag over to the lost-and-found center, A took it home.
The following day, A denied to police that he had found anything. Eight days later, after police told him they had reviewed closed-circuit television footage from inside the train, he acknowledged taking the bag home.
In statements to police and the company's disciplinary committee, A said he had not turned in the lost items because he wanted to give them to his wife as a gift, and that greed had clouded his judgment.
The railway special judicial police referred A to prosecutors on embezzlement charges. Prosecutors opted not to indict him, citing his admission of the offense, his clean record and the fact that he had reached a settlement with the victim.
SR, however, concluded that the misconduct was serious, convened a disciplinary committee and dismissed A. A appealed to the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission, arguing the punishment was too harsh, and the commission sided with him. SR challenged that decision before the National Labor Relations Commission, but when that appeal was also rejected, it filed suit.
The court disagreed with the labor commission. The panel said A had "used authority granted to him in the course of his duties to obtain financial gain by taking home lost property he found while managing the train cabin, constituting serious misconduct."
The court also found that A had acted with intent, noting that he had initially denied finding the items before changing his account only after being confronted with evidence.
The court rejected the argument that dismissal was disproportionately harsh. Under SR's internal rules, an employee who commits a serious intentional violation can be subject to removal from office — a more severe penalty than dismissal — meaning the company had already applied a lesser sanction.
The panel called A's conduct "serious misconduct that undermines the integrity of the lost-property management system" and said it had severely damaged the company's reputation. It also ruled that "the trust between the company and the cabin manager had been damaged to a degree that makes continued employment impossible."
jshan@heraldcorp.com
