The Supreme Court upheld on Tuesday a high court ruling that posthumously recognized a woman as a victim of Minamata disease, an industrial-related malady caused by mercury poisoning.

The top court's five-justice Third Petty Bench, led by Justice Itsuro Terada, handed down the decision on a lawsuit filed by relatives of Chie Mizoguchi, who argued that the Kumamoto Prefectural Government unfairly rejected her claim of having the disease.

Mizoguchi, a resident of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, died in 1977 at the age of 77.