The Fukuoka District Court on Friday determined that overwork caused a former Fukuoka city official's death and ordered the Fukuoka regional office overseeing accident compensation funds for local public servants to reverse its decision on the case.
The court said Harumi Kamo, then 38, died of overwork while working as a city official in April 1991. Kamo's wife Machiko, 47, filed a suit with the court demanding the compensation fund reverse the decision not to pay redress.
Presiding Judge Kunikazu Oyama said, "(Kamo) suffered from physical fatigue and mental stress due to strenuous, hard work."
The judge added that Kamo's sober personality contributed to accumulating levels of stress.
Oyama said that while Kamo may have suffered a cerebral aneurysm, which could have triggered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, he was in good health at the time and not at an age when an aneurysm easily occurs.
Oyama said, "There was no stress on Kamo except that from his work."
Kamo belonged to the Fukuoka city's board of education.
The compensation funds office earlier decided there was no relation between Kamo's death and his work as there was no record of him having done extra work the week before he died.