A Tokyo steak house chain has been ordered by a Japanese judge to pay some $500,000 in damages to the parents of a man who had worked excessive overtime for them just before he hanged himself four years ago. The man had worked for the company for years, had worked his way up to manager, and was working nearly 200 hours of overtime a month. Besides that, he experienced verbal and even physical abuse from his superiors.
The judge says the company is responsible because they did not stop the man from “working himself to death.” It reminds me of the man in Hawaii a couple months ago who ate himself to death, dying at nearly 900 pounds unable to even get up out of his bed. Perhaps his wife should be held responsible, Igor said, because she fed him on occasion and kept on buying the groceries.
The man was a manager and was working a ton of hours, which tells us that he was making plenty of money. Why is it not his own responsibility to figure out that he cannot work that many hours and to therefore quit? Maybe he valued money more than his life since he refused to give up his high-paying job but was willing to end his own life.