“Besides being intellectually disabled, you are a human being.” Plaintiff claims in Hokkaido farm abuse lawsuit

From The Asahi Shimbun via Yahoo! Japan

November 28 2023

Three men with intellectual disabilities filed a lawsuit asking the ranch owner’s family and the city to pay a total of approximately 94 million yen in damages, alleging that they were abused at the ranch where they lived and worked for many years (in Eniwa City, Hokkaido). The first hearing was held on the 28th at the Sapporo District Court (presiding judge Yuji Fuse). The defendants, the manager’s family, and the city requested that the claim be dismissed, stating that they were not aware of any abuse.

According to the complaint, all three men are in their 60s and had been living and working at Endo Farm in the same city for 18 to 45 years. As a general rule, there were no days off, and he woke up around 3:30 a.m. and worked from dawn until dusk, milking cows and doing farm work, but he was not paid.

A total of more than 50 million yen had been withdrawn from the bank accounts from which the three people received disability pensions since 2003, but the three people never received the money. The passbook was reportedly managed by the company’s managers.

The three people lived in a private room in a prefabricated hut on the ranch. There was no running water in the hut, and heating was only available in one room. For breakfast, we were provided with rice with hot water and a raw egg. Lunch and dinner included retort curry, which the plaintiff’s lawyers described as “quite simple.”

The complaint also mentioned the city’s responsibility.

As of January 2017, the city was aware of the three people’s living conditions, and stated, “Although we were acutely aware of the suspicion of abuse, we did not intentionally investigate because the manager was a former city council president and left it as it was.” I did,” he claimed.

At today’s argument, attorney Akiko Funayama of the plaintiff’s defense team gave her opinion. She said, “Even though the plaintiffs are intellectually disabled, they are human beings who have human rights just like the rest of us.It is impossible that something that is not permissible for a normal person should be permissible for a person with a disability.” ” she claimed.

On the other hand, the management’s family said, “There are some points that are different from what we know.”

The city countered by saying, “We were not aware of the fact of the abuse, nor did we cover it up or ignore it.” She said that just because the manager was a former city council president, she had “no motive or need to be condescending.”

Additionally, the city claims that the manager and his wife are the “foster parents” of the three plaintiffs. The three plaintiffs said, “It is appropriate to refer to them as “domestic servants,” and “it is incorrect to refer to them as “workers” with labor contracts.”

Lawyer Tetsu Nakajima, representing the plaintiffs, said, “According to the Act on Prevention of Abuse of Persons with Disabilities, municipalities have greater authority and responsibility for “caregiver abuse” by parents than for “employer abuse” by employers. ” points out.