Liability attribution for compensation of employees’work injuries and diseases: An analysis of judicial decisions and a questionnaire survey of legal and medical professionals

• Main Authors: Chieh-Jan Chen, 陳介然
• Other Authors: 鄭雅文
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/b66mj9

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 健康政策與管理研究所 === 105 === Background and study objectives: Occupational injuries and diseases include acute accidents caused by work and chronic diseases due to occupational exposure. When work-related injuries and diseases occur, doctors and judges are the gatekeepers who determine whether work-related injuries and diseases are occupational injuries and diseases or not under workers’ compensation systems. In Taiwan, the definitions and conditions of occupational injuries and diseases aren''t stipulated in the Labor Standards Act. Therefore, when work injuries and diseases occur, judicial standards may differ among these gatekeepers, leading to different compensation results. This research aimed to understand administrative and civil judicial decisions on occupational injuries and diseases and to investigate the attitude and its related factors of legal and medical professionals concerning liability attribution for compensation of employees’ work injuries and diseases. Research methods: Mixed-methods were used in this study, including the following: (1) Analyzing 162 administrative and civil judicial decisions on occupational injuries and diseases to understand major categories of occupational injuries and diseases in dispute, their definitions, the legislative spirit and factors that were considered in the decisions and so on, these decisions were determined during the period from January 1, 2000 to July 31, 2016 and were sampled by systematic sampling, snowball sampling and purposive sampling from the data bank of judicial cases; (2) Adopting Chi-Square Test to examine the association between "considering the controllable factors of employers or not" and "whether it is occupational injuries and diseases" of 79 judicial decisions which were determined during the period from November 17, 2006 to July 31, 2016, (3) Conducting a questionnaire survey among 339 judges, 398 lawyers and 319 doctors aged over 20 years old. Results: Among the 46 decisions from administrative courts,"accidents" and "diseases" were major types of events in dispute, both accounting for 43.48% (20 decisions). Among the 116 decisions from civil courts, accidents accounts for 70.69% (82 decisions), which were the most dominant type of events in dispute. Statistical testing indicated that there was significant association between "considering the controllable factors of employers or not" and "whether it is occupational injuries and diseases". Results from the questionnaire survey showed that the score of the government''s role in social protecton was lower in physican than in judges and lawyers.(doctors:21.43,SD:3.55;judges:22.30,SD:3.01;lawyers:22.49, SD:3.08).Under controling gender and age, there was a higher rate of lawyers who had high government''s responsibility to consider that the third party causing work-related injuries and diseases would had no need to compensate for labor insurance, judges had the opposite results; Under controling gender and age, judges and lawyers who had higher standard of government’s responsibility had a higher rate of considering that employers would had no need to compensate for the work-related injuries and diseases caused by the third party, doctors had the opposite results. Conclusions: Considering the controllable factors of employers or not affected the desitions of work-related injuries and diseases. Legal and medical professionals had different liability attribution for compensation because of the attitude to the responsibility of the government. The identification and the workers’ compensation systems played an important role in the rights for employees and the stableness of the society. If there is disparity between these significant gatekeepers, there will be uncertain factors about workers’ compensation systems, which will convey unfair if that have to be borne by all employees.