Do Not Assume the Company Is Safe Simply Because the Employee Never Reported Overtime: One Overwork-Related Occupational Injury Judgment Cost an Employer NT$12.28 Million

One of the greatest risks in business operations is often not external market competition, but internal working-hours management.

A recent judgment issued by the Taiwan Shilin District Court has once again sounded the alarm for business owners, HR executives, and managers at every level: if a company fails to properly manage working hours, workloads, and occupational safety and health, it may still face substantial liability for an overwork-related occupational injury—even where the employee never formally applied for overtime.

In this case, an assistant brand manager suffered an acute stroke less than four months after joining the company and was left permanently disabled. The court ultimately found that the company had breached its duty to protect the employee’s health and ordered it to pay more than NT$12.28 million in damages.

For every enterprise, the real issue is not merely whether overtime wages were paid. The more important question is whether the company has genuinely implemented labor-law compliance, working-hours management, occupational safety and health management, overwork prevention, and risk management.

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1. Companies Must Manage Actual Working Time, Not Merely Approved Overtime

The most important warning arising from this case is that the defendant argued that the company had formally approved only 49 hours of overtime. It claimed that the remaining hours were worked voluntarily by the employee and therefore should not be treated as overtime.

The court did not accept this argument.

The court held that where an employee has actually provided services, the time may still constitute working time even if the employee did not complete the company’s formal overtime application procedure.

Relevant working time may include remaining at the workplace after clocking out, preparing for and cleaning up after events, receiving work assignments from supervisors through LINE after regular working hours, and attending professional training courses on holidays at the company’s request.

The court further emphasized that determining whether an illness constitutes an overwork-related occupational injury is a separate issue from determining whether the employee is legally entitled to overtime pay.

In other words, a company cannot rely on the absence of an overtime application as a defense.

The critical issue is whether the company knew, or reasonably should have known, that the employee was continuing to work for extended periods.

2. Courts Examine the Overall Workload, Not Merely the Number of Hours Worked

Many companies mistakenly believe that no legal risk exists as long as statutory overtime limits are not exceeded.

This judgment demonstrates once again that courts assess the employee’s overall workload.

The court expressly stated that an occupational injury is not limited to circumstances involving long working hours. It may also arise where the employee is exposed to excessive psychological or physical burdens.

In addition to reviewing actual working hours, the court considered whether the employee had been required to undertake numerous projects immediately after joining the company, whether the work demanded substantial professional knowledge, whether the employee was responsible for major events, and whether the employee faced strict deadlines.

The court also examined whether the employee was required to provide spontaneous interpretation in a foreign language, regularly work late into the evening, work for several consecutive days without adequate rest, and endure continuously accumulating psychological pressure.

The court’s investigation further found that the company wanted the employee to acquire knowledge about wine as quickly as possible. The company therefore subsidized the employee’s course fees and had the employee attend a WSET Level 1 wine course during the weekend.

Although this may have appeared to be a well-intentioned effort to help the employee become familiar with the work, the court regarded it as one of the additional burdens that contributed to the employee’s condition.

The court also found that although the employee’s overtime during the month before the stroke was assessed at approximately 97 hours—slightly below the 100-hour threshold referred to in overwork-recognition guidelines—the combined effects of psychological strain, excessive short-term workload, and the nature of the work were sufficient to establish an adequate causal relationship between the employment and the illness.

This means that companies must manage more than the number of working hours. They must also manage the amount of work, the nature of the duties, the pace of work, and staffing arrangements.

3. The Company’s Greatest Legal Exposure Arose from Its Failure to Intervene in Time

The most serious finding in the judgment was not simply that the employee had worked long hours.

It was that the company knew the employee’s workload was excessive but failed to take any corrective action.

The judgment noted that the company knew the employee had only recently joined and lacked experience, yet continued to assign numerous major events within a short period.

The company also knew that the employee frequently worked late into the night but did not reduce the workload. Even after colleagues noticed that the employee’s physical and psychological condition was deteriorating and suggested that the employee take leave and rest, the company failed to provide assistance or reduce the employee’s duties.

The court therefore found that the employer had breached its statutory duty to protect the employee’s life, physical integrity, and health.

For employers, the true legal risk is not whether employees are willing to work overtime. It is whether managers continuously allow a workplace characterized by excessive hours, intense pressure, and unreasonable workloads to continue without intervention.

Working-time records are only one form of evidence.

What courts will ultimately examine is whether the company has established effective health-monitoring systems, excessive-hours warning mechanisms, managerial reporting procedures, and timely measures for adjusting job duties, staffing, and rest arrangements.

Attorney Chen Yeh-Hsin’s Reminder

As the Occupational Safety and Health Act places increasingly stringent requirements on workplace health protection, corporate HR management must also evolve.

A company that genuinely values employee safety and health is not necessarily a company in which no overtime occurs. It is a company that can prove it continuously monitors working hours, workloads, health risks, managerial practices, occupational safety and health, overwork prevention, attendance records, work allocation, and labor-law compliance—and that it takes concrete corrective action as soon as abnormal warning signs appear.

Employee overwork is often caused by more than excessive hours. It may also involve inadequate staffing, unreasonable target-setting, improper delegation, or a harmful organizational culture.

If your company has employees who are working extended hours while carrying heavy workloads, HR should treat the issue as both important and urgent and place it at the top of the management agenda following this judgment.

Courts will ultimately focus not merely on how long an employee worked, but on whether the employer fulfilled a reasonable and proactive duty to protect the employee’s health.

Is your company’s current working-hours management system truly capable of withstanding future judicial scrutiny in an overwork-related occupational injury case before a labor court?