When may a court reject only part of an expert appraisal and choose among conflicting appraisals? Supreme Court Decision 2022Da212273 on the probative force of appraisal results

Question

Article 202 of the Civil Procedure Act provides that the court judges whether a factual allegation is true, on its free conviction in the light of the whole tenor of oral argument and the result of evidence-taking, in accordance with the ideas of social justice and equity and the rules of logic and experience. Against that background the question is what probative force a court must give an expert's appraisal result, whether it may reject only the part of an appraisal that is wrong and still use the remainder as evidence, and where several appraisal results on the same point contradict one another, whether the court may rely on one of them or combine them.

Decision 2022Da212273 raises that question in a dispute over the sale of real estate between Plaintiff, a company that had planned to run an indoor screen golf venue, and Defendant, which sold the property. The Seoul High Court, in its judgment of 23 December 2021 (2020Na2028267), assessed damages from restrictions on use caused by an emergency exit and an A/V valve box by adopting the first-instance appraisal result, and rejected the claim for the whole period the property was unlet; both parties appealed.

Material to check

The statute among the texts read for this brief is Article 202 of the Civil Procedure Act, on free evaluation of evidence, which the decision cites as the provision governing the court's judgment of facts from the tenor of oral argument and the evidence-taking. The decision also refers to Article 2(1)(ii) of the Special Act on the Safety Control of Multi-Use Facilities and Table 2 attached to Article 9 of its Enforcement Rule, and to fire-safety legislation generally, as the legal purpose that limits the use of the emergency exit, the escape passage and the A/V valve box and its access route.

The decisions are Decision 2022Da212273 and the precedents it cites. Decision 2006Da67602 is cited in Decision 2022Da212273 for the rule that an appraisal result is to be respected unless its method of appraisal or the like contains a marked error, such as being contrary to the rules of experience or lacking reasonableness. Decisions 2009Da84608 and 2015Da49675 are cited in Decision 2022Da212273 for the rule that, where part of an appraisal result is wrong, the court may reject only that part and admit and use the remaining part as evidence, unless the error makes the appraisal results on the matter in question overall mutually contradictory or very obscure. Decision 97Da57979 (13 July 1999) held that, where there are several differing appraisal results on the same matter, relying on one of them is lawful so far as it does not offend the rules of experience or logic, and it set aside a judgment that trusted an unreliable appraisal and rejected the conflicting one; it also held that an expert opinion written out of court may ground findings if filed as documentary evidence and found reasonable. Decisions 2006Da67602, 2009Da84608 and 2015Da49675 could not be opened, and Decision 2010Da6659 was not read.

Possible readings

Read with Decision 2022Da212273's own statement of the rule it attributes to Decision 2006Da67602, an appraisal result is to be respected unless the method of appraisal or the like contains a marked error, such as being contrary to the rules of experience or lacking reasonableness. This is not a rule that an appraisal binds the court on every point: the court keeps its free evaluation under Article 202 of the Civil Procedure Act, and the appraisal is evidence to be weighed within the rules of logic and experience.

A second reading concerns partial rejection. As the decision puts it, drawing on Decisions 2009Da84608 and 2015Da49675, where part of an appraisal result is wrong, the court need not reject the whole appraisal: unless the error makes the appraisal results on the matter in question mutually contradictory overall or very obscure, the court may reject only that part and admit and use the remaining part as evidence. The condition matters: overall contradiction or very great obscurity removes the option of partial adoption.

A third reading follows Decision 97Da57979 and the statute's words on free conviction. Where several appraisal results on the same matter conflict, the court may found its findings on one of them, or combine the several results, in either case so far as this does not offend the rules of experience or the rules of logic. The decision repeats this without adopting a fixed order of preference among appraisals, and it also uses Article 202's standpoint to ask whether the appraisal actually measured what the law requires to be measured.

What the decisions held

Supreme Court Decision 2022Da212273 (14 July 2022) set aside the part of the Seoul High Court's judgment of 23 December 2021 (2020Na2028267) that dismissed Plaintiff's claims insofar as it concerned the alternative claim, remanded that part to the Seoul High Court, and dismissed Defendant's appeal. The panel was unanimous (Justices Min Yu-suk presiding, Cho Jae-yeon, Lee Dong-won and Chun Dae-yeop reporting).

On the appraisal point, the Supreme Court held that the appellate court misunderstood the law on the scope of damages in a sale of a building whose use is restricted by statute because of fire-safety installations, and failed to carry out the necessary examination. The emergency exit, the escape passage, the front of the A/V valve box door and its inspection route cannot have facilities, equipment or goods placed or stored there against their statutory purpose; Plaintiff cannot use those parts exclusively and must use them much like common parts. Given Article 2(1)(ii) of the Special Act on the Safety Control of Multi-Use Facilities, Table 2 attached to Article 9 of its Enforcement Rule and the fire-safety legislation, the restriction can be seen to reach beyond those parts to the whole property's use and manner of use. Whether the first-instance and appellate appraisal results properly measured the range and degree of that restriction was unclear, and the appellate court adopted the first-instance appraisal, which did not seem to reflect those circumstances at all, and calculated the damages from the emergency exit and A/V valve box on that basis.

The Court also found errors on two other points. First, on failure to install the emergency exit, the appellate court rejected the claim for the whole unlet period on the ground that it could not be said that the failure to lease the property to a third party was due to the non-installation of the emergency exit, without examining whether damage with adequate causal connection to the non-installation arose and its timing and scope; the evidence showed Plaintiff learned of the missing exit in about November 2016, objected at once, and the exit was installed only in about March 2017, with the golf venue plan falling through and the property let as an indoor tennis court on 21 April 2017. Second, on the emergency stair passage, the appellate court denied any use restriction although the passage is used much like a common part, and, in the alternative, treated Plaintiff as knowing and tolerating that from acquisition of title although Plaintiff's representative relied on Defendant's written confirmation of 6 February 2016 (Exhibit Gap 31) that the passage was an exclusive part and not a common entrance or escape route; Defendant had then turned the exit guidance lights away from the property's main entrance, the as-approved drawings showed them facing it, and in about November 2018 an order from the Songpa Fire Station to remedy findings of a fire-safety inspection led to their being turned back. Defendant's appeal, by contrast, merely disputed the appellate court's factual findings and evidence evaluation and was rejected.

Points left open

The decision states the conditions for partial adoption of an appraisal but does not identify which part of which appraisal is wrong here, which appraisal the court on remand should adopt or combine, or the amount of damage. It says the question whether both appraisal results properly measured the restriction from a normative standpoint was unclear, and leaves the fresh fact-finding to the Seoul High Court.

The boundary of the standard is not fixed: the decision does not say when an error becomes a 'marked error', nor when the results become 'mutually contradictory overall or very obscure' so that partial adoption is closed. Nor does the text of Decision 97Da57979 read for this brief show how the standard was applied to partial adoption, and Decision 2022Da212273 does not address whether appraisal results from out-of-court expert opinions, as in Decision 97Da57979, are treated differently from court-appointed appraisals in partial adoption.

When to reconsider

We revisit this brief if the judgment on remand fixes the erroneous part of the appraisals and the damages, if a later Supreme Court decision defines 'marked error' or the point at which appraisal results become too contradictory for partial adoption, if the texts of Decisions 2006Da67602, 2009Da84608, 2015Da49675 and 2010Da6659 become available, or if Article 202 of the Civil Procedure Act is amended.

Statutes referred to

• 민사소송법 제202조

Decisions referred to

• 대법원 2022. 7. 14. 선고 2022다212273 판결 · Decision ledger
• 대법원 1999. 7. 13. 선고 97다57979 판결

Verification status

All texts read for this brief were read at the National Law Information Center on 24 October 2026: Decision 2022Da212273 in its published holdings and full reasons, Article 202 of the Civil Procedure Act in its current text, and Decision 97Da57979 in its holdings and summary. The texts of Decisions 2006Da67602, 2009Da84608 and 2015Da49675 could not be opened, and Decision 2010Da6659, cited in the reasons, was not read, so their numbers alone are given.