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.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS