The Sendai High Court ruled Wednesday that the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. are responsible for the nuclear accident at the company's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant following the deadly quake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, upholding a lower court ruling.
The high court ordered the two parties to pay about 1.01 billion yen in damages, double the amount the Fukushima District Court had ordered in 2017, to 3,550 residents in Fukushima and neighboring prefectures. The roughly 3,600 plaintiffs had demanded about 21.5 billion yen in damages.
Among about 30 class action lawsuits nationwide over the nuclear accident, this was the first high court ruling in which the government was a defendant. There were rulings by 13 district courts in similar suits, but the rulings were divided, with the government's responsibility only being recognized in seven cases.
"We cannot help but say that the government did not play the role expected of an authority," Presiding Judge Satoshi Ueda said.
The high court ruling said the government could have foreseen the possibility of a huge tsunami, which was a point of contention in both the first and second trials, in light of the "long-term evaluation" of the government's headquarters for earthquake research. This evaluation pointed out in July 2002 the possibility of a massive earthquake off the Sanriku coast, where the epicenter of the 2011 earthquake was. The ruling said the government and TEPCO avoided estimating a potential tsunami because they feared the economic burden of measures to prepare for such a disaster.
The high court also increased the ratio of the government's responsibility. The district court ruled the government's burden of compensation was half of TEPCO's, but the high court ruled that the burden of both parties is equal because the government encouraged the construction of nuclear power plants as the country's energy policy.
"It is remarkably unreasonable" that the government did not use its authority to order TEPCO to take measures to prepare for a potential tsunami, the ruling said.
As for compensation, the high court recognized the damage caused by the loss of hometowns, and increased the amount set in the lower court ruling for residents who used to live in areas that were under evacuation orders. It included in the list of recipients residents of the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture, Marumori town in Miyagi Prefecture and parts of Tochigi Prefecture, which had been excluded in the district court ruling. However, some residents in Ibaraki Prefecture, who had been ruled eligible for compensation in the lower court, were excluded.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority released a comment after the ruling, saying: "Our claim, except for some parts, was not accepted. We will strictly assess the compliance [of nuclear plants] to new safety standards created after the accident and conduct appropriate management" of power companies.
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