A Japanese bus driver who put in three decades on the job won't be receiving his $84,000 pension—all because he decided to swipe a few bucks in passenger fare. The Mainichi reports that in February 2022, the unnamed driver slipped a passenger's 1,000-yen bill, worth about $7, into his pocket instead of depositing it into the fare processing machine. A month later, the Kyoto Municipal Transportation Bureau fired the driver after reviewing surveillance footage and decided he wasn't entitled to his retirement funds. The man sued and lost in Kyoto District Court, but he then won his case on appeal, with the higher court finding that the penalty of losing his pension was excessive, considering he'd repaid the small amount he'd taken.
But on Thursday, Japan's Supreme Court reinstated the original court ruling, citing other times the man had been in trouble on the job, including for smoking an e-cigarette while working, although there were no passengers on his bus at the time. The man had also initally tried to deny taking the $7 when first confronted by his supervisor. "Each one of the bus drivers works alone and handles public money," an official at Kyoto's public transport bureau tells AFP. "We took it very seriously that embezzlement related to this area of our work took place. If our strict measures were not accepted, then our organization could become careless, and it could result in eroding the public's trust." (More Japan stories.)
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