The family of a school violence victim has lost their appeal after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to declare the lawsuit concluded due to the lawyer's repeated absences.
The Supreme Court's second division, led by Justice Kim Sung-soo, confirmed the lower court's ruling that dismissed the appeal filed by Lee Gi-cheol, the mother of the late Park Joo-won, against the perpetrators of school violence.
The dismissal of the appeal without a hearing occurs when the Supreme Court finds no significant legal misunderstanding in the lower court's ruling, excluding criminal cases.
This case began in 2016 when the family of Park, who died in 2015 due to school violence, filed a damages lawsuit against the perpetrator, the school corporation, and the city of Seoul. The first-instance court partially accepted claims against one absent parent but dismissed the claims against the other defendants.
The family appealed, but their lawyer, Kwon Kyung-ae, failed to attend three consecutive hearings from September to November 2022. According to civil procedure law, if a party fails to appear twice and does not request a hearing within a month or fails to appear again on the designated date, the appeal is considered withdrawn.
However, Kwon did not inform the family of the loss for five months, resulting in the family learning of the unfavorable outcome without a proper appeals hearing. In response to the family's objections, the appeals court held an additional hearing in May but ultimately declared the lawsuit concluded a month later without resuming the trial.
The appeals court acknowledged that Kwon had severely violated her duty as a lawyer but ruled that the legal effect of the presumed withdrawal could not be disregarded. The family appealed to the Supreme Court, but their appeal was ultimately dismissed.
Meanwhile, Lee is pursuing a separate damages lawsuit against Kwon. In May, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Lee, ordering Kwon to pay 65 million won in damages.
Additionally, the Supreme Court deemed a 90 million won payment agreement Kwon had signed, admitting to the loss, as valid and ordered a retrial, with the ruling set for November 25.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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