Photo/Illutration Lawyer Shinsuke Tani, seated beside plaintiffs, speaks at a news conference in Osaka on Nov. 6. (Yuki Hanano)

OSAKA--Tens of millions of yen were awarded to plaintiffs in a case involving a school operator and a consulting company that hurled insults at employees to get them to retire.

One individual was compared to a “rotten orange.”

The settlement reached Nov. 6 obliges Otemon Gakuin Educational Foundation and consulting company Brain Academy Inc. to apologize to three former Otemon Gakuin employees and pay about 92 million yen ($600,000).

One of the former employees, who is in his 50s, will be reinstated.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the settlement, reached at the Osaka District Court, is tantamount to winning the lawsuit, which was filed in August 2020.

“You can encourage your employees to retire, but if they say no, any further action is illegal,” lawyer Shinsuke Tani told a news conference in Osaka on Nov. 6. “The settlement has made the established legal theory clearer.”

The plaintiffs had demanded about 36 million yen in compensation.

Otemon Gakuin, based in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, operates schools from university to kindergarten level.

According to the lawsuit, Otemon Gakuin told 18 employees, including the plaintiffs, in August 2016 that they were not up to scratch.

During a five-day training seminar that Brain Academy was commissioned to hold, the employees were told to present plans to “reinvent themselves,” among other assignments.

In feedback, the instructor told one individual, “A rotten ‘mikan’ like you cannot be left where it is.”

Others were told, “Fade away as an old soldier,” or “You will not blossom anymore.”

In meetings after the seminar, Otemon Gakuin’s president and other officials continued to push the employees to retire.

By March 2017, 10 employees had left the institution.

The plaintiffs took a leave of absence after developing depression and other mental disorders. Their health problems were later recognized as workers’ accidents.

“It was an abnormal seminar,” said a plaintiff at the news conference who is in his 40s and still regularly seeing a doctor. “I became unable to feel emotions with my integrity as a human being denied.

“I pray that Otemon Gakuin will carry out an in-house investigation and change itself.”

Otemon Gakuin argued that it had not tried to force the employees to retire or deny their integrity.

The institution apologized and promised to continue to take measures to prevent a recurrence.

Brain Academy also apologized for its instructor’s “inappropriate remarks,” saying they went against the intent of the commissioned seminar.

(This article was written by Tetsuaki Otaki and Yuki Hanano.)

Related News