Member dies after a 70kg barbell pins their neck and they are left unattended for 25 minutes... Gym owner and trainer acquitted again on appeal

[Financial News]  A gym owner and a trainer were acquitted again on appeal in a case involving a member who died after the member's neck was pinned under a barbell while exercising alone at the gym.
According to News 1 and other outlets on the 4th, a three-judge panel of the Busan District Court's Criminal Appeals Division 3-3, presided over by Judge Lee So-min, dismissed the Public Prosecution Office's appeal against the gym owner, identified as A, and an employee, identified as B, who had been indicted on charges of occupational negligence resulting in death, upholding the original acquittal.
They were sent to trial on charges of breaching their duty of care toward C, a person in their 40s who was exercising alone on the third floor of a gym in Seo-gu, Busan, on Dec. 20, 2024, thereby causing C's death.
On the day of the accident, C was exercising alone with a barbell weighing about 70 kg when the weight proved too heavy and the barbell pinned C's neck. C was left unattended for about 25 minutes and lost consciousness. After being taken to a hospital, C died on the 27th of the same month from hypoxic brain injury caused by traumatic asphyxia.
The Public Prosecution Office argued that gym owner A had failed to assign a sports instructor and had not arranged for staff to monitor members' condition by being stationed at the gym or checking CCTV footage. It held trainer B responsible for failing to fulfill the duty to observe members and respond to emergencies.
However, the trial court ruled that "the mere fact that no sports instructor had been assigned makes it difficult to establish a causal link between the accident and the death" and that "there is no basis for finding a duty to check CCTV footage regularly," and acquitted them.
The Public Prosecution Office appealed the ruling on the grounds that the court had misapprehended the facts and the law, but the appellate court rejected the appeal.
The appellate court ruled that "even if there was a breach of the administrative duty to assign a sports instructor, that alone does not establish that the duty of care to ensure members' lives and physical safety was breached" and that "the defendants appear to have fulfilled their duty of care to prevent accidents that could ordinarily be anticipated, including by ensuring that the exercise equipment was functioning properly."
The court added that "the victim had been going to the gym for more than six years and had received personal training for two years, and the accident appears to have occurred while the victim was using the exercise equipment in an unusual and dangerous manner." It explained that "the defendants cannot be held criminally liable solely because they knew the victim's exercise habits."
The court also said that "there is no basis for finding a duty to continuously monitor users' condition through CCTV" and dismissed the Public Prosecution Office's appeal in its entirety.
[email protected] Kim Su-yeon Reporter