From a Yonhap News report dated January 11, 2018.
Law Firm Changchun represented a care worker and a nursing home operator indicted for occupational negligence causing death in a case in which a Parkinson's patient in her nineties, resident at a nursing home, died of respiratory distress while eating bread provided as a snack, and secured acquittals in a jury trial.
"The 15th Criminal Division of the Incheon District Court (presiding judge Jun-seo Heo) announced on the 11th that it had acquitted care worker A (59, female) and nursing home operator B (33, female), who had been indicted for occupational negligence causing death. Of the 7 jurors in the jury trial, 6 and 4 respectively — a majority in each case — returned not-guilty verdicts for A and B.
As to A, the court held that 'the defendant was not the victim's designated care worker' and that 'it is difficult to find an occupational duty of care to watch over her until she had finished her snack and be ready for any emergency.' As to B, it added that 'there is no duty of care beyond complying with the legislation on the number of care workers and providing training on matters such as cutting food into small pieces.'"