Court refuses to reopen school violence case derailed by attorney's no-shows

The bereaved family of the late Park Ju-won asked a court to reopen a school violence civil case that was effectively closed when their attorney repeatedly failed to appear — but the request was denied.

The Seoul High Court's Civil Division 8-2 (Judges Oh Young-sang, Im Jong-hyo and Choi Eun-jeong) ruled Wednesday that "this lawsuit was fully terminated on Nov. 11, 2022, when the appeal was deemed withdrawn," in the appeal filed by Lee Gi-cheol, the mother of the late Park Ju-won, against 20 defendants including a school foundation and the students and parents involved in the bullying.

Before delivering the ruling, the panel said it "deeply regrets what happened in this case, separate from the outcome of the ruling," and offered words of consolation to the plaintiff.

The court added that attorney Kwon Gyeong-ae's failure to appear three consecutive times during the appeal proceedings — causing the appeal to be deemed withdrawn — "constituted an intentional or grossly negligent breach of her duty to handle the entrusted matter with the care of a diligent manager, and the illegality is extremely serious."

However, the court held that "the deemed withdrawal of an appeal is an effect that arises automatically by law upon satisfaction of the requirements set forth in the Civil Procedure Act," and that "the circumstances of Kwon's intentional or grossly negligent absence, or the argument of abuse of litigation authority alone, cannot negate that effect."

Lee Gi-cheol, the bereaved mother of a school violence victim who lost her lawsuit after her attorney failed to appear in court, weeps during an interview with reporters outside the Korean Bar Association building in Seocho-gu, Seoul, in June 2023, as a disciplinary committee hearing against attorney Kwon Gyeong-ae was under way. [Yonhap]

The court also addressed Lee's argument that, when an attorney fails to appear at a hearing, the court is required to notify the party directly — and that because she had not received such separate notification, the deemed withdrawal should have no legal effect. The panel said the issue "may be worth discussing as a matter of systemic reform, but it is difficult to use as grounds for negating the effect of the deemed withdrawal in this case."

Immediately after the ruling, Lee confronted the bench in tears, demanding to know what recourse she had when "the attorney deliberately torpedoed the case" and asking why her request to call witnesses had been denied, before leaving the courtroom.

Attorney Kwon had represented the family of Park Ju-won — a school bullying victim who died by suicide in 2015 — in a damages suit against the parents of the students responsible and the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, taking on the case in 2016.

The family won a partial victory at trial, but Kwon failed to appear at three consecutive appeal hearings, causing the verdict to be reversed against the plaintiffs in December 2022.

Under Article 268 of the Civil Procedure Act, if a party fails to appear at two consecutive hearings and does not file a motion to set a new date within one month, the court may deem the appeal to have been withdrawn.

Making matters worse, Kwon did not inform the family of the loss for five months afterward.

Meanwhile, the family filed a constitutional complaint challenging a Supreme Court ruling that ordered Kwon to pay 65 million won ($42,300) in consolation damages as insufficient, but the complaint was dismissed.

Earlier, on May 29, the Supreme Court broke with the lower court's ruling on the contractual payment portion of Lee's damages suit against Kwon and her former law firm, ordering it to be reconsidered, while upholding the lower court's finding that Kwon bore joint liability for 65 million won in consolation damages.

123@heraldcorp.com