How does the court decide that the family members of the man who died after voluntary overtime claimed 500,000 yuan？

　　CCTV News:Nowadays, sudden death of workers happens from time to time, and safeguarding rights afterwards often becomes the focus of controversy. Recently, Wenmou, a 50-year-old man from Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, worked overtime for more than 4 hours. After returning home, he felt unwell and eventually died after being sent to hospital.

　　In the face of the claim and prosecution of Wen’s family, the Huqiu Court in Suzhou recently made a first-instance judgment according to law, and the employer must bear corresponding responsibility for Wen’s sudden death and compensate 200,000 yuan.

　　Voluntary overtime, sudden death after work is not a work-related injury

　　Wenmou was born in 1965, and his family has a heavy financial burden. In March last year, he signed a one-year full-time labor contract with a company to engage in electronic product assembly. It is stated in the contract that Party B will work 8 hours a day, with 5 days a week and 2 days off.

　　Due to the nature of the work in the industry, and the remuneration will increase with the working hours, overtime has become a commonplace for Wen, who is bent on earning more money. In late November 2016, Wenmou found that the level of white blood cells in the blood was lower than normal in the physical examination arranged by the company, and further examination was recommended. But within a month, the accident happened.

　　At about 10 pm on December 20 last year, Wenmou punched out from the company. In the early morning of the next day, his wife found him abnormal, so she took him to the hospital and died after being rescued. The hospital issued a certificate that the cause of death was sudden death and the specific reason was unknown.At the beginning of 2017, Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security issued the Decision on Not Recognizing Work-related Injury, which determined that Wen’s sudden death was not regarded as a work-related injury.

　　Wen’ s family believes that due to long-term overtime work and overtime work when accidents occur, Wen’ s sudden death is caused by overwork. Therefore, Wen’ s company was sued to the court and demanded compensation of more than 500,000 yuan.

　　Enterprise overtime exceeds the legal limit.

　　In court, the defendant argued that the company has never forced Wen to work overtime, and will organize employees to have physical examinations regularly, and arrange rest time during work, and also allow employees to take appropriate rest according to their own situation during non-rest time, which has fulfilled their basic labor security obligations to employees.

　　Does the employer have any infringement on Wen’s overtime behavior? The court held that in this case, although Wen’s sudden death was not recognized as a work-related injury, if the defendant company violated its legitimate rights and interests due to its fault in the process of performing the labor contract, Wen’s close relatives also had the right to ask him to bear tort liability.

　　The court found that during the one and a half months before Wen’s sudden death, there were overtime hours ranging from 2.5 hours to 4.5 hours during the working day, and most weekends often worked overtime. In addition, Wen worked overtime for more than 4 hours the day before his sudden death.According to the relevant provisions of the Labor Contract Law, the employer generally arranges overtime for no more than one hour every day.In this case, for a long period before Wen’s death, his working hours and extended working hours exceeded the upper limit prescribed by law.

　　If there is any infringement or fault in the enterprise, the compensation will be 200,000 yuan.

　　Even though overtime is voluntary, according to the defendant’s explanation, the reason for Wen’s overtime is inseparable from the production and operation needs of the enterprise, and the company knows and agrees to the overtime behavior of employees, so the court found that the defendant had infringement and fault in Wen’s overtime behavior.

　　As for whether there is a causal relationship between Wen’s overtime behavior and his death result, the court held that according to the existing evidence, although it is impossible to prove that there is a direct causal relationship between them, according to the closeness of the process of overtime and sudden death after returning home, this causal relationship cannot be ruled out.

　　In the end, considering that the cause of sudden death is also related to many factors such as Wen’s physical quality, physical and mental adjustment and daily life arrangement, the court decided that the enterprise should bear 20% compensation responsibility for the losses caused by Wen’s death, and decided to pay close relatives all kinds of losses totaling 200,000 yuan.

　　How can workers’ rights be protected by law when they suddenly die after work?

　　According to China’s industrial injury insurance regulations, if a worker dies of sudden illness during working hours and at work, it can be considered as a work death or regarded as a work death. If the laborer dies suddenly after work, it does not constitute a work death according to the regulations.

　　If a worker dies suddenly after work, although it does not constitute a work-related injury, if the employer commits an infringement and causes the sudden death of the worker, the family members may require the employer to bear the tort liability according to the above-mentioned legal provisions.