Attorney who skipped hearings, cost client case faces fraud complaint from family of late school violence victim

Attorney Kwon Kyung-ae, who represented the family of the late Park Ju-won — a school violence victim — and caused them to lose their case by failing to appear in court, has been hit with a fraud complaint by the bereaved family.

According to police, Lee Gi-cheol, the mother of the late Park, filed a complaint Thursday at the Seocho Police Station in Seoul seeking Kwon's punishment on fraud charges.

In the complaint, the family said Kwon had missed two hearings during the first trial, and that both absences came immediately after her own errors had come to light — suggesting the no-shows were deliberate.

The family alleged that Kwon had filed for damages only on behalf of the bereaved family members, omitting claims for Park's own pain and suffering and for lost future earnings, and that Kwon had abruptly skipped hearings each time those omissions became an issue during the first trial.

In addition, the family said Kwon deceived them into retaining her for the appeal without disclosing that her mistakes had triggered a three-year statute-of-limitations problem for the claims.

The family's position is that Kwon's conduct in taking on and handling the case — deceiving her clients and collecting fees under false pretenses — constitutes fraud.

Lee Gi-cheol, mother of the late Park Ju-won, a school violence victim. [Yonhap]

Kwon represented Lee in a civil lawsuit filed in 2016 against the perpetrators of the school violence, the school foundation and the Seoul Metropolitan Government over the death of Park, who died in 2015.

The first-instance court accepted only the claim against one parent who had failed to appear and dismissed the remaining claims.

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Under the Civil Procedure Act, a party that fails to appear three or more times is deemed to have withdrawn the suit.

Kwon did not inform the family of the loss for five months, and Lee missed the deadline to file a Supreme Court appeal, leaving the ruling finalized in 2022.

Separately from the fraud complaint, the family has also filed a motion with the Supreme Court requesting a constitutional review, arguing that stripping a party of the right to a trial solely because their attorney failed to appear is unconstitutional.

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