Lee Gi-cheol, the plaintiff in the civil damages suit stemming from attorney Kwon Gyeong-ae's repeated absences from court hearings [Newsis]
Lee Gi-cheol, the plaintiff in the civil damages suit stemming from attorney Kwon Gyeong-ae's repeated absences from court hearings [Newsis]

A damages lawsuit against attorney Kwon Gyeong-ae — who caused her client to lose a school violence case by repeatedly skipping hearings — is headed for a full court ruling after both sides rejected a court-recommended settlement in the retrial on remand.

The case will now be resolved through a judicial ruling rather than a court-mediated settlement.

According to legal sources Sunday, Lee Gi-cheol, the mother of the late Park Ju-won — a girl who died after suffering school violence — and Kwon each filed separate objections to the settlement recommendation with Seoul Central District Court's Civil Appeals Division 9-2, the panel handling the retrial on remand.

On July 14, the court recommended that Kwon pay Lee a contractual sum of 90 million won ($61,200), along with delay damages on that amount, as well as approximately 1.63 million won in delay damages on the 65 million won in consolation money already confirmed by the Supreme Court ruling.

The recommendation followed the Supreme Court's remand instructions and in effect accepted all of the plaintiff's claims.

Under civil procedure rules, a settlement recommendation takes effect as a court-mediated settlement if neither party objects within two weeks of receiving it. The deadline to object was Tuesday.

Lee's legal representative issued a statement saying Kwon's side filed an objection first on Thursday, and that Lee's side also objected on Saturday, stating that Lee wanted a ruling explicitly addressing Kwon's wrongdoing rather than a settlement.

The court set Aug. 19 as the date for the next hearing.

Lee's side said it plans to file a criminal complaint against Kwon on fraud and other charges, and to use that as a basis to seek increased damages.

Kwon filed a civil lawsuit in 2016 on Lee's behalf against the perpetrators of the school violence, the school foundation and the Seoul Metropolitan Government over Park's death.

The first-instance court accepted only the claim against one parent who had failed to appear at trial, dismissing the rest.

Lee's side appealed, but Kwon missed three consecutive appeal hearings between September and November 2022, resulting in a complete loss.

Under the Civil Procedure Act, a party that fails to appear at three or more hearings is deemed to have withdrawn the suit.

Kwon did not inform the bereaved family of the loss for five months, causing Lee to miss the deadline to appeal to the Supreme Court. The ruling was finalized in 2022.

Lee filed suit seeking 200 million won in damages, arguing that Kwon's negligent representation had violated her right to a fair trial and her right to appeal.

The first-instance court ordered Kwon and her law firm to pay 50 million won in consolation damages. The second-instance court increased that amount to 65 million won and separately ordered the law firm to pay Lee an additional 2.2 million won.

Lee appealed to the Supreme Court after the second-instance court rejected her claim for the contractual sum stipulated in a written pledge Kwon had signed when she belatedly disclosed the loss.

The appellate court ruled that Kwon was not obligated to pay the contractual sum because a condition in the pledge — that the attorney's misconduct would not be reported in the media — had not been met.

But in May, the Supreme Court overturned that ruling, finding that the pledge contained no such media-ban condition and that Kwon's obligation to pay the contractual sum was therefore valid, and remanded the case for retrial.


greg@heraldcorp.com