His Death from Overwork Finally Recognized as Industrial Injury!

You might also like:

University Fired Professor Following Sexual Misconduct Prob

Maternity Leave Extended to 158 Days, Paternity Leave & More!

Recently, Mr. Jiang, a former employee of a listed company （"A Company"）, was finally recognized as a work-related injury nearly 600 days after his death.

Mr. Jiang was a salesperson at a wholly-owned subsidiary of A company. At around 9 am on January 1, 2023, he was found dead in his dormitory by his colleagues. He was only 33 years old.

Mr. Jiang joined A company in early 2022, and was assigned to work in the sales department in another city after joining A company. Since then, working overtime until the early morning has become the norm for Mr. Jiang.

Since the products that Mr. Jiang is responsible for are frozen products, he often needs to track delivery vehicles and inspection reports at night.

At around 16:00 on December 30, 2022, Mr. Jiang went to Hospital for treatment due to chest pain and was diagnosed with lung infection.

On December 31, 2022, Jiang Dengshuai was still handling related daily work, and once complained to his colleagues that "my heart aches and I'm about to die."

At around 9 am on January 1, 2023, Jiang Dengshuai was found dead in his bed in the dormitory.

According to the Wechat records before his death, Mr. Jiang still had to work overtime to attend meetings and meet with clients even when he had a lung infection. His supervisor once said that "people with low fever can be arranged to visit market customers."

According to his wife, Ms. Feng, her husband worked overtime for a long time after joining the company. He was still working while sick and attended a meeting until after 4 a.m. the day before his death. She applied for industrial injury evaluation twice , but failed . After each failure, Ms. Feng filed an administrative review, but the industrial injury was still not recognized.    

According to Article 15 of the Industrial Injury Insurance Regulations, if an employee dies of a sudden illness during working hours and at his/her workplace, or dies within 48 hours after rescue efforts have failed, it shall be deemed as an industrial injury. Based on this, the local authority believes that the time from Mr. Jiang's visit to the doctor to his death was not continuous, and he was sleeping when he fell ill, not working; his death on the bed in the dormitory did not constitute a sudden illness at his workplace, and therefore did not meet the conditions for being deemed an industrial injury.

Ms. Feng disagreed . She claimed that before the incident, Mr. Jiang had a heavy workload. Holding meetings at night and working overtime until 3:00am-4:00am had become his normal work routine. He used the dormitory for work most of the time, and the only short breaks he took were to replenish his energy for work. He should be deemed to have been at his workplace at the time of the incident.

In addition, the two-bedroom apartment provided by the company for Mr. Jiang and his colleagues serves as both a workplace and a resting place. In principle, the living room is used as an office and the bedroom is used as a dormitory ; but Jiang Dengshuai sometimes goes to the bedroom to work.

As the industrial injury recognition failed twice, Ms. Feng took the localauthority and the local government to court in April 2024 .

On August 7, Ms. Feng finally received the "Decision on Recognition of Industrial Injury" (hereinafter referred to as the "Recognition Letter") issued by the local authority. At this time, 583 days had passed since Mr. Jiang's death.

The Recognition Letter pointed out that the accident injury (or occupational disease) suffered by Mr. Jiang met the provisions of Article 15 of the "Industrial Injury Insurance Regulations" and fell within the scope of industrial injury determination, and is now determined to be deemed a industrial injury.

With the rapid development of social economy, the overtime problem in some enterprises has become increasingly serious, and the incidents of employees dying from overwork have attracted much attention from all walks of life.    

However , there is no clear definition of "death from overwork" in Chinese law. In judicial practice, if a worker wants to obtain a work-related injury certification after "death from overwork", it is usually necessary to cite the "deemed work-related injury" clause. In other words, the death must meet the standard stipulated in Article 15.

Specifically in this case, considering that Mr. Jiang Dengshuai worked overtime for a long time, and his bedroom and living room were in the same apartment, there was no clear distinction between work and life. Mr. Jiang's rest time could indeed be regarded as a reasonable extension of his job.

Relevant experts pointed out that the issue of how to identify "death from overwork" as a work-related injury should be put on the agenda as soon as possible, and excessive overtime work should be clearly defined as one of the criteria for being deemed a work-related injury, thereby reducing the occurrence of "death from overwork" and forcing the governance of the "996 phenomenon."