Original title: sudden death after returning home from illness at work, whether it is work-related injury (theme)
Inner Mongolia: Protest against an industrial injury determination case and urge the family members to receive the industrial injury insurance benefits in full (subtitle)
Procuratorate Daily reporter Liu Tingting Correspondent Wu Jingjun Liu Ying
The workers in the fifties asked for leave from the unit with chest distress. When they arrived home, their condition worsened, and they died of ineffective rescue, which lasted only one hour. Is this a work-related injury?
This is an industrial injury determination case that can be called an "extreme" situation. The applicable laws of the relevant departments are inconsistent. After three court trials, the dispute lasted for four years. In the end, the procuratorial organ insisted on "three skills" in handling the case, successfully protested in accordance with the law, the court re tried, the human resources and social security department re identified it as work-related injury, and the parties finally obtained the work-related injury insurance benefits they should enjoy.
One day before sudden death, he asked for leave for medical treatment due to physical discomfort
Lao Li, who has worked for 36 years, is a safety officer in a company in Inner Mongolia. On the morning of July 28, 2020, Lao Li felt unwell when he went to work at the unit, asked for leave to see a doctor, and returned to work after taking medicine to relieve his symptoms. In the afternoon of the same day, Lao Li felt uncomfortable again, and the project manager asked him to take a leave to go home for a rest.
In fact, when Lao Li was in the hospital, the doctor suggested that he be hospitalized, but because the company had a safety officer review and certificate change training exam the next day, Lao Li refused - because of the special nature of the post, if he failed the exam, it meant that Lao Li could no longer serve as a safety officer.
It was this decision that made Lao Li miss the best time for treatment.
On July 29, during the exam, Lao Li felt uncomfortable, but he insisted on going home with his colleagues after finishing the exam at 16:30. After arriving home, Lao Li's condition worsened and he fell into a coma. His wife, Ms. Xue, immediately called the emergency number. At 17:30 that day, the ambulance arrived and Lao Li was diagnosed as having died suddenly.
The sudden change made the family of three fall into the abyss.
After taking care of Lao Li's affairs, Xiao Li and Ms. Xue, the sons of Lao Li, applied to the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of a city (hereinafter referred to as the "Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau") to identify Lao Li as an industrial injury. The Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau believes that Lao Li does not meet the conditions of deemed work-related injury stipulated in Article 15 of the Regulations on Work related Injury Insurance (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations), so it does not recognize him.
The mother and son then filed an administrative lawsuit to a district court in the city. In the first instance, the court found that Lao Li's situation was deemed to be work-related injury, and decided to revoke the decision of the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau not to recognize work-related injury, and ordered him to make a new decision within a time limit.
The Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau refused to accept this result and lodged an appeal. The court held in the second instance that Lao Li did not belong to the situation of deemed work-related injury, and the judgment of the first instance was rescinded.
After Ms. Xue's mother and son's lawsuit was rejected, she applied to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region High Court for retrial, which was also rejected. Faced with this result, the mother and son fell into despair again, so they applied to the procuratorial organ for supervision. A municipal procuratorate accepted the case according to law and submitted a protest to the procuratorate of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The procuratorial organ successfully protested, and the court tried again and changed the sentence
As for the conditions that should be met for deemed work-related injuries, Item 1 of Paragraph 1 of Article 15 of the Regulations clearly stipulates that during working hours and posts, a person dies of sudden illness or dies of invalid rescue within 48 hours.
After a comprehensive review of the case files, the procuratorial organ asked Lao Li's colleagues and family members one by one, and consulted relevant experts and administrative authorities, and gave clear legal supervision opinions: Lao Li had a sudden illness during his working hours and on his job, and his death time was less than 48 hours from the time he first went to the medical institution for diagnosis due to physical discomfort, Conform to the situation of "death or death after rescue within 48 hours". Lao Li suffered from chest distress, and the process from onset to sudden death was continuous. Because he did not make an accurate judgment on the severity of the disease, he chose to go home to rest, which was in line with the self rescue choice and daily rationality of ordinary workers.
"When there is no other evidence to prove that there may be other reasons for the death result, if Lao Li's return home behavior is the only reason, he will refuse the determination of work-related injury. The fact that the upper limit of the application conditions stipulated in the Regulations is shrinking, which is contrary to the legislative purpose of protecting the rights and interests of workers." The case handling prosecutor told reporters.
On February 28, 2023, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Procuratorate filed a protest to the Autonomous Region High Court. On December 29 of the same year, the Higher Court of the Autonomous Region adopted the protest opinion, and the retrial judgment annulled the second instance judgment and upheld the first instance judgment.
Li Yongjun, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Procurator General of the Procuratorate of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was very worried about the handling of the case, and expressed his opinions on the focus of the dispute of the case when attending the meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Higher Court of the Autonomous Region. In his view, the identification of industrial injury cases should not be handled in a "one size fits all" way, and specific cases should be analyzed to fully understand the original meaning of the legislation. The situation that Lao Li was at work when he was ill, had an acute illness and had death consequences should be identified as work-related injury, so as to make law enforcement and justice more humane and closer to the original legislative intent.
"In handling cases, we should be good at accurately grasping the substantive legal relationship from the complicated legal facts, and also be good at deeply understanding the spirit of the rule of law from the specific legal provisions, be good at achieving fairness and justice in the organic unity of legal principles and feelings, and effectively implement the basic value pursuit of 'handling every case with high quality and efficiency' to all links in the whole process of procuratorial handling cases." Li Yongjun stressed.
Two level procuratorates follow up and supervise, and resolve disputes substantively
Does the administrative organ agree that the court's retrial decision takes effect? Supervise whether the applicant can get the work-related injury insurance benefits that Lao Li should enjoy?
In this regard, the two level procuratorates continued to follow up the follow-up processing of the case, and immediately held a forum with the Municipal People's Social Security Bureau after the retrial verdict came into effect. Taking the case as the entry point, they conducted in-depth discussions on the understanding and application of Item 1 of Paragraph 1 of Article 15 of the Regulations, and reached a consensus.
On February 29 this year, the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau made a new decision to recognize Lao Li's death as an industrial injury.
"After four years of waiting for this" Work Injury Identification ", my wife finally got justice for Lao Li." Ms. Xue was very excited.
"In handling administrative litigation supervision cases of work-related injury determination, if the administrative organ improperly limits the scope of application of Item 1, Paragraph 1, Article 15 of the Regulations, and the effective judgment has not been corrected, the procuratorate should supervise and correct it by lodging a protest and other means." Sun Luyi, director of the administrative procuratorial department of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Procuratorate, said, Lao Li's situation is indeed an extreme situation in practice, which is an important reason for controversy. The case successfully protested and changed the sentence, which is of reference significance to correctly understand the settlement of the controversial issue of "sudden illness at work" and whether death after returning home from illness at work can be recognized as work-related injury. However, Sun Luyi also pointed out that other similar but not completely consistent cases of industrial injury determination should be analyzed according to the specific situation, and this case should not be mechanically applied.
"This case is a very representative and typical case for us to handle the supervision of effective administrative adjudication of work-related injuries." Li Yongjun said that the supervision of effective administrative adjudication is the "top priority" of the supervision of administrative litigation, and handling such cases should be based on the function of administrative procuratorial work, which not only supervises the justice of courts but also promotes the administration of administrative organs according to law Integrate into the whole process of handling cases, play a good role in correcting deviations, and maintain the unified and correct implementation of laws.
On May 20 this year, Ms. Xue and Xiao Li successfully received the full amount of Lao Li's work-related injury insurance benefits, and couldn't wait to call the prosecutor to tell him: "Thank the prosecutor's office for pulling us out when we felt desperate, which is also an explanation to Lao Li."
