The coffee chain 85°C must pay an employee NT$74,000 in damages after she developed constrictive tenosynovitis and tendinitis due to long hours of work, the Taichung District Court ruled on Thursday.
The plaintiff, surnamed Wang (王), started working at the company’s centralized factory in Greater Taichung’s Nantun District (南屯) in 2005. Tasked with packaging, Wang said she had to maintain a fixed posture for three to eight hours per day, during which she had to cut 100 to 250 frozen cakes.
In April 2010, Wang visited a doctor because of chronic hand pain. She was diagnosed with constrictive tenosynovitis, commonly known as trigger finger syndrome, in her right thumb and also tendinitis.
Constrictive tenosynovitis is a condition where the superficial and deep flexor tendon of the finger becomes inflamed and the tendon experiences a nodular enlargement, either making the finger painful to move or sometimes locking it in place. The condition usually occurs in the index or ring finger, but occasionally in the thumbs as well.
After quitting her job in May 2010, Wang obtained medical proof from the China University University Hospital that her injuries were occupational, winning her NT$117,000 in compensation from the Labor Insurance Bureau. She also filed suit against 85°C, seeking NT$333,000 in compensation.
Though 85°C denied that Wang’s injuries resulted from her work, the judge in the ruling said the doctor’s diagnosis confirmed that her condition had come from overly repetitive actions of grabbing and holding things.
However, as the company had not violated labor regulations nor asked Wang to work beyond normal hours, there was no basis for her demand for psychologically related compensation, the ruling said.
Saying that Wang had lost income of more than 200 workdays due to her injuries, the court ruled that the firm must pay her NT$74,000 in damages.
Chung Ching-ju (鐘靜如), the company’s public relations and sales director, said it would consult with its lawyers on how to react after it received the ruling in writing.
However, Chung said the company had centralized its factories prior to 2005 and cakes were all cut by machines. Unless certain occasions required production that exceeded the machines’ capacity, it would not need to have its staff slicing cakes, she said.
Wang was also a deputy section chief, Chung said, which meant she was not slicing cakes everyday because she would have had management duties aside from her routine work.
It was impossible to slice that many cakes a day, Chung added.
According to regulations, medical staff must first visit the working environment prior to awarding the patient proof of injury, Chung said the company doubted the veracity of the medical proof as the doctor who signed the certificate had not visited the factory.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS