## Facts

- Yoshinori Watanabe served as the top leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi, a large organized-crime group structured in multiple tiers with centralized authority at the top.
- The group’s activities generated money through intimidation, extortion, and violence, with proceeds flowing upward through the hierarchy.
- Lower-tier members were rewarded for violent conduct and for taking risks on behalf of the group, including confronting rival groups and accepting imprisonment for group-related crimes.
- In August 1995, a violent confrontation occurred between Yamaguchi-gumi members and a rival criminal group.
- A lower-tier member (“K”) was involved and, during the aftermath, shot and killed Police Sergeant Tsuyoshi (Takeshi) Fujitake, mistakenly believing the officer was a member of the rival group.
- Fujitake’s surviving family sued K, other involved members, and Watanabe for wrongful-death damages.
- The trial court imposed tort liability on K and other members but did not impose personal liability on Watanabe.
- The appellate court imposed civil liability on Watanabe as head of the organization.
- Watanabe appealed to the Supreme Court of Japan.

## Issues

1. Whether the head of a hierarchical criminal organization can be held personally liable in tort for a killing committed by a lower-tier member during gang activity.
2. Whether the organization’s structure, control, and profit flow permit treating the leader as a joint tortfeasor even absent a direct order to commit the specific act.
3. Whether a homicide arising from a clash associated with the organization’s violent practices is sufficiently foreseeable and imputable to the leader to support civil damages.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court dismissed Watanabe’s appeal and affirmed the judgment imposing civil liability on him.
- The Court held Watanabe personally liable to the victim’s family for damages arising from the wrongful death.
- The Court treated the killing as a foreseeable result of the organization’s violent operations and the leader’s position of authority and benefit from those operations.
- The Court found that lack of proof of a specific instruction to shoot did not bar liability where the organization’s methods depended on and rewarded violence.

## Legal Principles

- A leader may be liable as a joint tortfeasor for harms caused by subordinates when the leader maintains a controlled, economically integrated organization whose operations rely on violence and the harm is a foreseeable outcome of those operations.
- Centralized authority and the upward flow of proceeds from violent conduct support imputing responsibility to the leader for torts committed in furtherance of the organization’s activities.
- Tort liability can extend beyond direct perpetrators to those who organize, benefit from, and sustain an enterprise that predictably generates serious harm, even without proof of a specific order for the particular injury.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court affirmed civil damages against the head of a major criminal syndicate for a subordinate’s fatal shooting, reasoning that the organization’s hierarchical control and profit-driven reliance on violence made the killing a foreseeable and imputable result of the group’s activities.


Watanabe v. Fujitake, 58 Minshū 8 (Sup. Ct. Japan 2004)