Open Decision Ledger · Civil obligations & remedies
Truthfulness of a press report for a correction claim
Supreme Court, Oct. 12, 2018, 2014Da51855 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 손해배상
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
For a correction claim under the Press Arbitration and Remedies Act, must the press report concern a factual claim and be untrue, and what does the truthfulness of a press report mean and how is it assessed?
Holding
Yes. Article 14(1) of the Press Arbitration and Remedies Act allows a person injured by a report on a factual claim that is untrue to demand a correction, so a report on a factual claim that is untrue is required. The truthfulness of a press report means that, read as a whole, its important parts accord with objective facts; a slight difference from the truth or a somewhat overstated expression in the detail does not make it untrue, and rhetorical exaggeration added while simplifying complex facts or dressing them up for public interest does not defeat truthfulness where the important parts still accord with the truth in the overall context. The test is the overall impression given to an ordinary reader, reached by weighing the report's objective content, the ordinary meaning of the words used and the way the phrases are linked, in relation to the report's overall gist and against the social background to the expression.
Points at issue, verbatim
언론보도가 사실적 주장에 관한 것으로서 진실하지 아니하여야 하는지 여부(적극)
Unofficial English translation
Whether a news report must be untrue in relation to a factual assertion (affirmative)
Disposition
Dismissed Stated in the decision
상고를 기각한다. 상고비용은 피고가 부담한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed. The costs of the final appeal shall be borne by the defendant.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
위 법에 의한 정정보도를 청구하기 위하여는 당해 언론보도가 사실적 주장에 관한 것으로서 진실하지 아니함을 요한다
Unofficial English translation
In order to claim a corrective news report under the aforesaid Act, the news report in question must be untrue in relation to a factual assertion
Factors
- 언론보도가 사실적 주장에 관한 것으로서 진실하지 아니하여야
- 언론보도의 진실성의 의미 및 그 인정 기준
Unofficial English translation
• A news report must be untrue in relation to a factual assertion
• The meaning of the truthfulness of a news report and the criteria for finding it
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2002. 1. 22. 선고 2000다37524, 37531 판결(공2002상, 522)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2000Da37524, 37531 decided January 22, 2002 (Gong 2002 Sang, 522)
Decisions referred to
대법원 2002. 1. 22. 선고 2000다37524, 37531 판결(공2002상, 522), 대법원 2006. 3. 23. 선고 2003다52142 판결(공2006상, 713), 대법원 2007. 9. 6. 선고 2007다2275 판결, 대법원 2012. 11. 15. 선고 2011다86782 판결(공2012하, 2031), 대법원 2015. 7. 23. 선고 2014다28121 판결
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
How much rhetorical exaggeration in simplifying complex facts or embellishing them for public interest goes beyond the point at which the important parts of a report no longer accord with objective facts?
A later decision refining what counts as the important part of a report or the social background to an expression would require this entry to be read again. Any amendment to Article 14(1) of the Press Arbitration and Remedies Act would likewise call for a fresh reading.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 4 (form of the test).
Axis 4 (Form of the test): Primary “Elements stated” vs Independent “Circumstances weighed”
The readings differ in the form of the test: the primary lists requirements and elements as a checklist, while the independent reading describes a holistic weighing of content, wording and social context. Both express the same underlying test.
언론보도의 진실성의 의미 및 그 인정 기준Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Seoul High Court, in its judgment of 20 June 2014 (2013Na48397), held that the article implicitly asserted that the Cheonsan Mountain tunnel works had been suspended for 2 years and 8 months because of the plaintiff's fast and application for an injunction, causing total damage of KRW 6 trillion, and that this part of the report was untrue. It reasoned that the expected loss of KRW 2.5 trillion had assumed a one-year delay to the second section of the Gyeongbu high-speed rail line, that the section opened as planned in 2010 so the loss could never have arisen, and that although the period from the injunction application to the Supreme Court's dismissal of the re-appeal was 2 years and 8 months, the works had been suspended only for 6 months.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court found no error in that reasoning. Applying the law it restated and the lawfully admitted evidence, the court below had not misread the evidence rules, misidentified the object of the truthfulness assessment or misunderstood its method under the Press Arbitration Act, nor had it unduly restricted freedom of the press. It also rejected the defendant's argument that the reporting was not unlawful, because a correction claim under the Press Arbitration Act does not require the illegality of the reporting act, and dismissed the appeal with the concurrence of all participating Justices.
Distinguishing conditions
- A report that does not concern a factual claim, since Article 14(1) requires the report to be on a factual claim.
- A report whose important parts accord with objective facts in the overall context, where the differences in the detail or the degree of exaggeration stay within the range the Court described.
- A case in which the claimant asks not for a correction but for a finding that the reporting was unlawful, since the Court held that a correction claim does not require illegality.
Record verification notes
Set the article out as an ordinary reader would meet it, with its headline, body, layout and the numbers used, and read the whole in the order the court below did. Then compare the important parts with the objective facts, allowing for slight differences and rhetorical exaggeration, and add the social background to the expression. Keep the illegality argument apart, since it does not decide a correction claim.
From the official text
Points at issue
언론중재 및 피해구제 등에 관한 법률에 따른 정정보도를 청구하기 위해서는 언론보도가 사실적 주장에 관한 것으로서 진실하지 아니하여야 하는지 여부(적극) / 여기서 언론보도의 진실성의 의미 및 그 인정 기준
Unofficial English translation
Whether a news report must be untrue in relation to a factual assertion in order to claim a corrective news report under the Act on Press Arbitration and Remedies, etc. for Damage Caused by Press Reports, etc. (affirmative) / The meaning of the truthfulness of a news report here and the criteria for finding it
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
상고를 기각한다. 상고비용은 피고가 부담한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed. The costs of the final appeal shall be borne by the defendant.
Provisions referred to
언론중재 및 피해구제 등에 관한 법률 제14조 제1항
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
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