Citation

McGuire R. Asian Journal of Law and Economics 2012; 3(1).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012)

DOI

10.1515/2154-4611.1062

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Ten years after the Japanese Supreme Court established a duty of care for employers to guard employee health, incidents of death by overwork remain critically high. This Note argues that the Dentsū standard of near-strict employer liability does not create sufficient incentives to prevent karoshi. Applying Steven Shavell's insight that a victim who knows his injurer will be liable for damages will not be incentivized by the law to prevent the harm, the Note explains why neither employees nor the employers responded to Dentsū. It concludes that Dentsū is correctly understood as cause of action in tort for survivors of karoshi victims, not a vehicle to change the Japanese workplace. © 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston 2012.

Language: en

Keywords

suicide; Japan; karoshi; karo jisatsu; law and economics; liability regimes; Shavell