The Judge Who Saw Through It
Though she had been a classmate of mine in university, she was also Senior Sister Sun Ryeowon, a year older than I was.
We were classmates at the Judicial Research and Training Institute too.
I’d heard she got married right after completing the training program, so seeing her as a lawyer was a little surprising.
It looked as though, once the hearing date was set for Oh Yoon-ja and the five others, they’d rushed to hire counsel.
“Y-young man, the lawyer.”
I smiled at the worried auntie staring at defense counsel.
“Is it all right to hire a lawyer this late? We won’t be at a disadvantage or anything, will we?”
“It’s fine. There’s a Supreme Court precedent saying that even if a lawyer performed litigation acts without filing a notice of appointment, those acts can still be recognized as valid once the notice is submitted later. It even came out this summer.”
“Oh, I see.”
“The important thing is whether the lawyer is Cha Do-hyuk or not.”
I wasn’t trying to show off. I just wanted to calm her down.
And if she happened to feel that my lawyer was more capable, all the better.
Sure enough, the auntie’s mouth curved up in satisfaction.
“Of course. Our lawyer young man matters more.”
“Exactly, right? Miss Lee Kkot-soon, would you like to sit over here?”
The auntie took her seat at the plaintiff’s table, and I placed the coat I’d been carrying over the back of my chair.
“You remember the courtroom etiquette I mentioned earlier, right?”
“Mm-hm.”
“That’s all you need to keep in mind. Leave everything else to me. And if the judge asks you to make a statement, just read the part I highlighted in green.”
Then, suddenly, a commotion broke out behind the gallery.
“Why can’t I go in?”
It was Oh Yoon-bok, wearing a cap.
A hat isn’t proper courtroom etiquette. Looks like Senior Sister Ryeowon didn’t get a chance to tell him that separately.
Sun, startled, hurried over to the loudly protesting Oh Yoon-bok and bowed to the court officer.
“I’m sorry. I’ll explain courtroom etiquette to the defendant.”
She then sharply warned the man, who was hurling curses, that if he failed to observe courtroom etiquette, the judge could have him removed from the courtroom.
“Ha! Hey, girl. You just glared at your client?”
What, you want to fight? What kind of nonsense is that, just before a hearing?
I almost laughed at the idea that someone could say that without being completely insane.
Sun said nothing, her expression flat as she nodded once.
“Girl? Oh Yoon-bok. Am I to understand you don’t see me as a lawyer? Should I just submit a withdrawal notice now?”
“What? No, I mean, before you’re a lawyer, you’re still a girl.”
“As I said several times during consultation, I am not a girl. I am a lawyer.”
With that, Sun bowed to the officer and turned away.
“I called her a girl because she’s pretty, but educated women are always such a pain in the ass,” Oh Yoon-bok muttered, then plopped into the seat beside hers.
He was truly beneath contempt.
“Defendant, take off your hat.”
When the court officer shouted at Oh Yoon-bok, he grumbled for a long time before finally taking it off.
“Mr. Oh Yoon-bok, don’t cross your legs. Sit properly. That’s courtroom etiquette.”
“What a load of bull. Courtroom etiquette, my ass.”
The auntie, mouth hanging open, whispered to me.
Can he really get away with that?
Of course not. Arguing with a court officer, or with a lawyer, is always a net loss.
For us, that was a good thing.
Thud.
“The trial is now beginning. Everyone in the courtroom, please turn off your smartphones, and remain quiet during proceedings.”
The court officer announced the opening of court.
Then the judge’s entrance door opened, and Judge Moon Yu-jin walked in.
He stood on the bench and bowed in greeting.
The young judge, not a single gray hair on his head, switched on the microphone.
“Good afternoon. We will now begin the trial of the Seoul Central District Court, Civil Division 31.”
“Case No. 2023GaDan 12345. Confirming the parties’ appearance.”
He asked for the attendance of the plaintiff, Lee Kkot-soon.
“Counsel for plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik, are you present?”
“Yes, I’m Cha Do-hyuk, counsel for the plaintiff.”
“Please sit.”
Sometimes a judge buried in work would only confirm the appearance of counsel, but this judge seemed full of energy, checking attendance carefully from the start.
I’d heard he was easygoing, but he’s more meticulous than I expected. Judge Moon Yu-jin — noted.
“Representative defendant Oh Yoon-ja and five others, are you present?”
“Defendant Oh Yoon-bok is present.”
“Counsel for defendant Oh Yoon-ja and the other five, are you present?”
“I’m attorney Sun Ryeowon, counsel for the defense.”
“Yes, understood.”
The judge turned the pages of the file.
“The plaintiff submitted the complaint on December 12, 2023, and a preparatory brief on January 30, 2024, and filed Plaintiff’s Exhibits 1 through 7.”
“Yes.”
For reference, Plaintiff’s Exhibit 1 meant the plaintiff’s first piece of evidence.
“The defendants submitted an answer on January 25, 2024, and a preparatory brief on February 2, and filed Defendant’s Exhibits 1 and 2.”
“Yes.”
In Korea, in a civil trial, the parties submit preparatory briefs to the court two or three weeks before the hearing, laying out the matters they intend to argue at trial.
And what the judge had just asked was whether it was acceptable to use the briefs submitted on those dates as materials for deciding the case.
So “yes” was enough.
Whether it was a one-man lawsuit or a case with counsel.
But in a concentrated civil bench trial, the judge asks in greater detail about the briefs.
This wasn’t an ordinary civil hearing that ended in ten minutes.
So it’s finally starting.
Since this was the first hearing for Civil Division 12 after the court’s personnel reassignment on February 19, 2024, the sitting judge was likely to listen carefully to the parties’ statements.
It’s a bit like holding a ritual on the first day of filming to pray for a smooth shoot. A kind of blessing for an incident-free beginning.
“Counsel for the plaintiff, Cha Do-hyuk, please state your case.”
Even now, the judge was giving me the floor to make a statement from the briefs.
It was time to build the case.
“Plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik worked at an Oseong Construction site as a subcontracted laborer and, after the IMF crisis, devoted himself to household affairs.”
It was basically Mr. Oh Yoon-sik’s personal fan fiction, but that was beside the point.
“Then, at around 8:00 p.m. on November 29, 2023, the defendant Oh Yoon-ja and the other five met him at a grilled-meat restaurant in an alley at 265 Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and reached an agreement in a memorandum to distribute to their siblings the land compensation money from the total of 1,000 pyeong of land at 51, 52, and 60 Sancheon-ri, Bubal-eup, Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, which they had ‘inherited.’”
I emphasized that because he was illiterate, he had signed without knowing the contents of the memorandum, relying entirely on the defendants’ words.
“At around 9:00 p.m. on December 4, the illiterate plaintiff, Oh Yoon-sik, reviewed the land compensation memorandum with his spouse, Lee Kkot-soon. But the contents written in that memorandum were completely different from what the defendants had said on the day the agreement was reached.”
This was, of course, a fraudulent manifestation of intent under Article 110 of the Civil Act.
And it also violated Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the Civil Act, the principle of good faith and fairness.
Whether or not the other side raised the issue during litigation, the court could investigate and judge the violation on its own authority.
But for the sake of a quick result, I had attached CCTV footage from the alleyway grilled-meat restaurant showing Mr. Oh Yoon-sik never once even opening the memorandum.
No matter what the defendants argued, they couldn’t rebut that.
“Also, at around 10:40 a.m. on December 5, 2023, at the underground arcade of the Seoul Express Bus Terminal Station, the defendant Oh Yoon-bok assaulted the plaintiff’s child, Oh Ye-ji. Accordingly, we request a judgment nullifying the memorandum.”
When I finished, the judge’s eyes curved with amusement.
He caught the wordplay.
Still, he didn’t seem eager to move past procedure too quickly, and followed it step by step.
“Counsel for the defense, attorney Sun Ryeowon, please respond to the plaintiff’s claim.”
“The defendants, Oh Yoon-ja and the other five, did in fact reach an agreement at the alleyway grilled-meat restaurant at around 8:00 p.m. on November 29, 2023, to gift the plaintiff’s land compensation money by memorandum.”
“But that originated from plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik’s suggestion. In addition, the defendants explained the contents of the memorandum to the plaintiff over the course of about two hours at the grilled-meat restaurant in the alley.”
The defense also claimed that plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik had agreed after hearing the killer poison pill clause that he would bear the resulting taxes as well.
“Furthermore, the assault that occurred on December 5, 2023, at Seoul Express Bus Terminal Station was an unforeseen situation. Defendant Oh Yoon-bok merely raised his hand into the air; he had no intention of assaulting the plaintiff’s child, Oh Ye-ji. Rather, because Oh Ye-ji suddenly rushed in, it became an act that amounted to violence.”
There’s video of it still on NewTube, and that’s your excuse?
They were taking both the judge and me for fools.
“Defendant Oh Yoon-bok was aware of these facts, so please take into account that after the police arrived, he quietly left the scene. That is all.”
The judge switched on the microphone.
“I understand the positions the plaintiff and the defendants have taken in the complaint and the answer. The key issue in this case is whether the defendant’s conduct provides grounds to invalidate the memorandum in relation to the plaintiff.”
Then the judge looked straight at me.
“Plaintiff, do you have evidence to prove the facts you are asserting?”
“I will submit Plaintiff’s Exhibits 1 through 7, attached to the complaint.”
From here, I just had to recite them one by one.
First, Plaintiff’s Exhibit 1.
“I submit the recording of the phone call on November 29 at 9:24 a.m., when Oh Yoon-ja lured Oh Yoon-sik out.”
Second, Plaintiff’s Exhibit 2.
“I submit the corrected agreement for division of inherited property, revised through the efforts of the plaintiff’s spouse, Lee Kkot-soon, after the defendants in the past deceived the illiterate plaintiff, Oh Yoon-sik, into drafting a division agreement for the inherited estate.”
It was a division-of-estate agreement covered in underlining.
Without the auntie’s efforts, even the Bubal-eup land at issue in this lawsuit would never have been inherited.
“One moment, Attorney Cha Do-hyuk.”
Is he trying to direct the argument himself?
When a judge in a civil case broke from party autonomy like this and asked a question, it implied that he wanted you to elaborate further.
“Are you saying that, just as in this case, defendants Oh Yoon-ja and the other five deceived plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik into preparing an inheritance division agreement, and then plaintiff Lee Kkot-soon checked its contents and struck through the false parts?”
“Yes. Even though the defendants knew that plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik was illiterate, they told him facts different from what was written in the agreement.”
The judge’s gaze sharpened.
“Just like with the land compensation memorandum in this case?”
“That’s correct. Moreover, in this case, they even warned him not to tell his spouse, Lee Kkot-soon, and she only found out on December 4.”
“So plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik has done this sort of thing often, then?”
“No, he hasn’t. Plaintiff Oh Yoon-sik trusted his siblings because he believed they shared a deep bond of brotherly affection, even paid the inheritance taxes after hearing them say they had no money, and for roughly twenty-three years he never received a single won toward ancestral memorial expenses.”
“……?”
The judge’s face clearly said, That’s not deep brotherly affection — that’s just being a sucker.
So I nodded.
Exactly. A consummate sucker.
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