Lost Earnings Due to Accident: Make Ruling a Step to Change Convention of Cutting Funds for Those with Disabilities

Editorial

16:00 JST, January 28, 2025

Society should make it possible for people with disabilities to work in the same way as those without disabilities. The message that the judiciary has sent must be accepted.

In a lawsuit over the 2018 accident in Osaka City in which an 11-year-old girl, who was hard of hearing, was fatally struck by heavy machinery on a sidewalk, the Osaka High Court ruled that the lost earnings the girl would have received from working in the future were the same amount compared to people without disabilities.

Lost earnings are calculated based on income before accidents, but since children have no income, the average wage of all workers is used as the base for the calculation. Rulings in the past have tended to consider the work capacity of those who are disabled to be low, so the Osaka District Court, in its ruling, had set the girl’s lost earnings at “85% of the average wage.”

However, the high court acknowledged that the girl was able to communicate adequately with others if she wore a hearing aid, and that she would surely have language and communication ability, partly thanks to her own efforts.

Based on the recognition, the high court ordered the driver of the heavy machinery and other defendants to pay about ¥43 million and did not reduce the amount of her lost earnings, citing that she “had the ability to work at the same level as a person without disabilities.”

The bereaved family, who throughout the trial had been saying that it was prejudiced to say that she could not work like a person without disabilities because she was hard of hearing, must have felt a myriad of emotions after hearing the ruling.

Lost earnings are also referred to as the “price of life.” In the past, there was a difference in the amounts between men and women as well, and there was even a court ruling that in the case of a girl’s death, her income was set at zero after she approached marrying age. Later, with the progress in women’s participation in society, a method to use the average wage of all workers was established.

The ruling at the Osaka High Court indicated that the reduction of lost earnings for children, including those with disabilities, should only occur in exceptional cases.

This is a significant change in the conventional thinking that reducing amounts for those who are disabled is inevitable. It can be said that this has had an impact on what compensation for damages should be like for people who are disabled.

However, it remains to be seen to some degree how the ruling at the high court will affect people with other disabilities.

Advances in digital technology have made it possible for those who are hard of hearing to use such technology as voice-recognition apps that display their conversations as text. However, the extent to which those who have physical disabilities or intellectual disabilities can work in the same way as those without disabilities may vary from person to person.

The revised law for eliminating discrimination against persons with disabilities came into effect last year, obliging not only government agencies but also private companies to give certain considerations to those with disabilities.

In order for people with disabilities to work smoothly, agencies and companies are required to devise ways through such means as changing their internal layouts to allow wheelchair access and enlarging the font size of documents.

It is important in the future to continue to remove barriers for people with disabilities one by one, taking into account technological advances and changes in social awareness.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan. 28, 2025)