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[Recent Court Case 6] Payment of overtime allowances is deemed confidential information.

2020.06.25

[Case No. Daegu District Court decision 2020GuHap21410 dated June 25, 2020]

This was a case finding that payment of overtime allowances to the employee, who was allowed time off and then used the time on the non-working day, is not illegal and that the payment record of overtime allowances is deemed confidential information. 
 
 
The plaintiff filed a claim for disclosure of the payment record of overtime allowances as to the retired cleaning staff on December 31, 2019 and the cleaning staff at the municipal government office from 2016 to 2019. The defendant made the decision to not disclose pursuant of Article 9(1) Clause 6 of the Official Information Disclosure Act on the ground that the information in this case was personal information which may be used to identify individuals. The plaintiff filed a claim for canceling the decision in this case. The plaintiff argued that (i) the information in this case was not deemed Article 9(1) Clause 6 under the Official Information Disclosure Act and (ii) the information in this case was subject to an exception from non-disclosure under Article 9(1) Clause 6(c) under the Official Information Disclosure Act on the ground that the information was required for the public interest purpose to verify whether the defendant unlawfully paid the overtime allowances to the employees who was allowed time off. 
 
 
As to the first argument, the court considered that (i) disclosing the information about the wage without the owner of the information may infringe confidentiality or freedom because the information about the wage is generally intended to be kept confidential and (ii) if the information in this case was disclosed, it will be used to easily identify the relevant individual, overtime allowances, and wages. The court found that the information in this case was the information about the individuals and the information recognized as raising concerns of infringement of confidentiality or freedom if disclosed. The court therefore held that it was the confidential information pursuant to Article 9(1) Clause 6 under the Official Information Disclosure Act. 
 
 
As to the second argument, the court explained that the full-time union official is different from the employee with time-off and that paying allowances for the full-time union official who used the allowed time off was not improper. The court thereafter found that the defendant’s payment of the overtime allowances to the employee who was entitled time-off in the event the employee used the time on a Saturday was not improper. Additionally, the evidence submitted by the plaintiff alone was not sufficient to prove that the cleaning staff of the defendant improperly accepted the overtime allowances and severance pay. The court did not find any of the exceptions under Article 9(1) Clause 6 of the Official Information Disclosure Act would apply.

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