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Boy kicks soccer ball, man dies, boy’s parents end up in court.
Anything can happen when you kick a ball – or when you step out of your house, for that matter. What happened in this celebrated case is that a man, making a movement to avoid a wayward soccer ball, fell and subsequently died. The man’s family sued. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court – which in April found the boy’s family not liable.
It could have gone either way. In July 2013, a Kobe District Court judge ordered the single mother of a 15-year-old boy whose bicycle struck and injured an elderly woman to pay 95 million yen in damages. A month later, the Nagoya District Court ordered the family of a 91-year-old man suffering from dementia to pay 7.2 million yen to JR Tokai railway, one of whose trains had struck and killed the man, who had wandered onto the track; the compensation was for losses the railway incurred from scheduling delays and such. The family should have supervised the man more closely, the court ruled.
Japan’s courts are very busy these days – unhealthily so, argues writer Akiko Shimojyu in Sapio (July). Whatever happened, she wonders, to the Japanese people’s admired and admirable ability to settle disputes amicably among themselves?
She grants, of course, that free recourse to impartial courts is a necessary feature of an advanced democracy. Still, “it’s strange,” she says, “the obsessive quest for someone to blame in cases of pure accident. Families of children and dementia sufferers can’t possibly supervise their charges 24 hours a day.”
Western individualism versus what might be called Japanese “family-ism” is a familiar theme, and Shimojyu sees in it a partial explanation. “In Japanese families,” she says, “a wife calls her husband ‘papa’; a husband calls his wife ‘mother,’ and so on. The point is that family members are less individuals than performers of a role.”
Man, woman or child, a Japanese person never ceases to be part of a larger whole. This is more or less true of everyone, but a difference of degree beyond a certain point becomes a difference in kind. No better example of that is the one Shimojyu raises: the famous “ore-ore” scams.
Nothing, she writes, is more surprising to foreign observers of Japan than these seemingly transparent but perennially successful frauds. The typical pattern goes something like this: A young man dials a phone number more or less at random and, speaking very rapidly and familiarly, patters, “Ore da (it’s me) – listen mom (or dad, grandma, etc), I’m in trouble. Loan sharks have their hooks in me (or whatever), and if I don’t pay immediately, they’ll kill me, torture me, dismember me. Please transfer money to my account, number…”
Pitches have grown more sophisticated in the decade or so since the embryonic phase, but the essence remains the same. How can anyone possibly fall for it? But people do – in droves, allowing themselves to be bilked of amounts whose nationwide total is now close to 50 billion yen a year.
Only in Japan, sighs Shimojyu. “Anywhere else,” she says, “a typical parent (even if taken in by the imposture) would worry, naturally, but say in the end, ‘Listen, we’ll give you some help but you’re grown up now, you’re on your own. A grownup solves his or her own problems.’” Not in Japan. In Japan “people lose their reason at the mere thought that their child has caused harm” – and rush to the ATM to set things right.
Shimojyu’s failure to attribute Japan’s new litigiousness to American influence – the U.S. after all has always been as notoriously litigious as Japan was notoriously non-litigious – is interesting and unusual. No, she says, it’s old Japanese thinking in new dress. And the courts’ tendency to order “responsible” family members to compensate victims – though not to be taken for granted, as the Supreme Court’s soccer ball decision shows – merely reflects an ancient and traditional fact of Japanese life: family members actually feel responsible.
© Japan Today
12 Comments
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SenseNotSoCommon
which permeates (dominates?) every aspect of life, for some.
Yubaru
It's not just in accidents but in schools and everyday life as well. It permeates much of society. They blame the English teacher for not speaking enough English, they blame the company for making up a difficult test so their child cant get a job, the parents run off to cover for their delinquent children and blame anyone and everyone for their mistakes.
Finger point abounds, but it never points back at themselves.
Novenachama
Is having an accident a coincidence or is it bad luck or some divine intervention or divine influence or karma?
ebisen
I think it's a bit too much to expect this in a case involving loss of life and/or huge amounts of money, even in Japan. Although the soccer ball case was frivolous to the limit. You know, everybody employed in the justice system needs to justify their salaries and positions, and that's a big reason such cases are not thrown out after the first hearing...
NathalieB
Ive never really understood where this has come from. In general in my experience I have found Japanese way more self-centric than westerners. Don't want to lift a finger to help someone in trouble on the street. Families never contacting each other and have no idea when someone has died. My husbands family never speak to him, he never contacts them and they would have no clue what was going on in our lives if I didn't call once a week. And its not that they are happy that way. My mother in law hates her other two Japanese daughter and son in laws and always talks about how they never contact her. If they mean dedication to the company and getting group consensus for every little decision then I can agree to that but thats not necessarily a good thing, especially when despite your loyalty you end up shafted anyway.
nakanoguy01
it comes from confucionism, and this family mentality is a common theme all over asia. in japan, you are legally responsible for your family members.
and sorry to hear that your in-laws are estranged, but your singular anecdotal evidence hardly proves that japanese society is not family-centric. my in-laws love spending time together and talk quite frequently. it just depends on the family dynamics.
SenseNotSoCommon
@nakanoguy,
Nor does yours, for that matter. I know of several examples where interfamilial relations are severely toxic (the uchi becomes soto) because of Confucianism's expectation of primogeniture and filial piety.
Are you married to an eldest daughter, by any chance?
nath
Groups here are only dedicated here until out of site, and then you are immediately out of mind.
sighclops
No country has a perfect legal system, but there are so many 'holes' & contradictions here it's beyond a joke.
cloa513
Same corrupt legal system in almost every country. Judges never want to do there job- case dismissed- appeals dismissed quickly with the plaintiff penalised where appropriate.
TheRat
I BET ole Akiko Shimojyu is an old fossil pining away for the good ole days! Sure sounds like. "Why can't we all just get along and solve things like we did before." Well, before, lawyers were scarce and very expensive and no one could hardly afford them. That changed around 10 to 15 years ago when there were so many complaints about not being able to get justice. The PROBLEM is not with lawyers and people having access to "justice" but having judges that KNOW the law, can see the "big picture" in regard to responsibility, and can make "sane" decisions. The soccer ball and person dying is a clear indication. Should have been dismissed right away by the very first judge. I remember one time when we were eating in a restaurant in Moji when these old people were going to the buffet and another family with two young children sitting next to us. Before I knew it: the police were called, a swarm of them, mind you and accusations that one child of the family next to us and ran and had "accidentally" bumped and "knocked down" one of the older people in the buffet line. We were halfway through out meal, and that poor woman was soliciting witnesses to say that her child had not done that (and they seemed like good kids), but unfortunately, I just hadn't looked up at that time. But really! Bumped and knocked down someone. Many of my friends said that if she can be "knocked down" so easily by a mere bump, she shouldn't have been standing in line. The police grilled that family for a long time! Again, the police chief should have just dismissed it. Remember last month, when a family whose father was killed by another truck driver who had veered into his lane? And the judge found the victim's family (as they were suing) guilty? Why? Because he should have honked! I have seen, being here 21 years, hundred upon hundreds of insane decisions by judges--not only here but also in America (especially when it relates to police!), so there needs to be some oversight by a citizen's panel to remove judges who have a history of crazy decisions.