Open Decision Ledger · Constitutional, administrative & state liability
Reasons beyond a party's control and lawful postal service
Supreme Court, Apr. 15, 2021, 2021Du30051 (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: 난민불인정처분취소
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
What counts as a reason for which a party is not responsible under Article 173(1) of the Civil Procedure Act, applied through Article 8 of the Administrative Litigation Act, and what counts as a case in which no other place of service can be found under Article 185(2) of that Act?
Holding
A party is not responsible where it took the care it ordinarily must take to carry out the procedural act and still could not keep the time limit. No other place of service can be found, so that service by registered post is permitted, only where there is no need to examine the resident registration record ex officio and the place of service cannot be known from the data appearing in the file. Here the first-instance court served the general address alone although the complaint stated both an address and a special address, so its postal service was unlawful and had no effect.
Points at issue, verbatim
행정소송법 제8조에 의하여 준용되는 민사소송법 제173조 제1항에서 규정하는 ‘당사자가 책임질 수 없는 사유’의 의미 및 민사소송법 제185조 제2항에서 말하는 ‘달리 송달할 장소를 알 수 없는 경우’의 의미
Unofficial English translation
The meaning of “a reason not attributable to the party” as provided in Article 173 (1) of the Civil Procedure Act applied mutatis mutandis pursuant to Article 8 of the Administrative Litigation Act, and the meaning of “where there is no other place at which service can be made” as used in Article 185 (2) of the Civil Procedure Act
Disposition
Reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
여기에서 말하는 ‘당사자가 책임질 수 없는 사유’라 함은 당사자가 그 소송행위를 하기 위하여 일반적으로 하여야 할 주의를 다하였는데도 그 기간을 지킬 수 없었던 경우를 의미한다
Unofficial English translation
“A reason not attributable to the party” as used herein means a case in which the party has exercised all due care generally required to perform that act of litigation and yet was unable to observe that period
Factors
- 민사소송법 제173조 제1항에서 규정하는 ‘당사자가 책임질 수 없는 사유’의 의미
- 민사소송법 제185조 제2항에서 말하는 ‘달리 송달할 장소를 알 수 없는 경우’의 의미
Unofficial English translation
• The meaning of “a reason not attributable to the party” as provided in Article 173 (1) of the Civil Procedure Act
• The meaning of “where there is no other place at which service can be made” as used in Article 185 (2) of the Civil Procedure Act
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2011. 5. 13. 선고 2010다84956 판결, 대법원 2018. 4. 12. 선고 2017다53623 판결 참조
Unofficial English translation
See Supreme Court Decision 2010Da84956 decided May 13, 2011; Supreme Court Decision 2017Da53623 decided April 12, 2018
Decisions referred to
대법원 2011. 5. 13. 선고 2010다84956 판결(공2011상, 1162), 대법원 2015. 8. 13. 선고 2015다213322 판결(공2015하, 1343), 대법원 2018. 4. 12. 선고 2017다53623 판결(공2018상, 886)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
If the party never obtains the copy of the judgment after an unlawful postal service, from which day does the reason beyond its control cease and the appeal period begin to run?
The remand judgment of the Seoul High Court will show how the unlawful postal service was treated once the file was re-examined. Any amendment to Articles 173 or 185 of the Civil Procedure Act or to Article 51 of the Civil Procedure Rules, or a later decision shifting the duty to check the progress of one's own case, would require reading this entry again.
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 8 (open question and revisit condition).
Axis 8 (Open question and revisit condition): Primary “If the party never obtains the copy of the judgment after an unlawful postal service, from which day does the reason beyond its control cease and the appeal period begin to run?” vs Independent “Would the plaintiff's failure to monitor the proceedings preclude a late appeal if the court had first attempted service at the complete address stated in the record?”
The primary reading asks from which day the reason ceases when no copy of the judgment is obtained, while the independent reading asks whether the plaintiff's failure to monitor the case bars a late appeal if the correct address had been tried first.
행정소송법 제8조에 의하여 준용되는 민사소송법 제173조 제1항에서 규정하는 ‘당사자가 책임질 수 없는 사유’의 의미 및 민사소송법 제185조 제2항에서 말하는 ‘달리 송달할 장소를 알 수 없는 경우’의 의미Raw 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 9 December 2020 (2020Nu53257), dismissed the plaintiff's belated appeal. It held that the plaintiff was under a duty to look into how the case was proceeding and to confirm the result of the judgment, so that even though the copy of the first-instance judgment had been served by public notice, the failure to keep the appeal period could not be attributed to a reason for which the plaintiff was not responsible.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the first-instance court should have served the precise address with the special address, which appeared in the file, before resorting to service by registered post, and that serving the address with the special address omitted and going straight to postal service once delivery failed was unlawful. It therefore held that the plaintiff had failed to keep the appeal period for a reason for which it was not responsible, and that the belated appeal filed within two weeks of 20 August 2020, when that reason ceased, was proper. The reasons of the court below misstated the law on postal service and on the supplement of procedural acts, so the judgment was reversed and remanded.
Distinguishing conditions
- A case in which the court serves the address and the special address exactly as they appear in the file, so that service by registered post is not the first attempt.
- A case in which the place of service is known from the data in the file, so that the condition of Article 185(2) is not met and postal service is not permitted.
- A case in which the party received the hearing notice, the date notice and the copy of the judgment properly, so that it could have kept the appeal period.
Record verification notes
Set the address and the special address written in the complaint against the address the first-instance court actually used for each document, and mark the dates when each delivery failed and when postal service was deemed complete. Then fix the day the reason ceased, here 20 August 2020 when the plaintiff obtained the copy of the judgment, and count the two weeks from that day rather than from the date of the judgment. Check the versions of Articles 173 and 185 of the Civil Procedure Act and Article 51 of the Civil Procedure Rules in force on each service date.
From the official text
Points at issue
행정소송법 제8조에 의하여 준용되는 민사소송법 제173조 제1항에서 규정하는 ‘당사자가 책임질 수 없는 사유’의 의미 및 민사소송법 제185조 제2항에서 말하는 ‘달리 송달할 장소를 알 수 없는 경우’의 의미
Unofficial English translation
The meaning of “a reason not attributable to the party” as provided in Article 173 (1) of the Civil Procedure Act applied mutatis mutandis pursuant to Article 8 of the Administrative Litigation Act, and the meaning of “where there is no other place at which service can be made” as used in Article 185 (2) of the Civil Procedure Act
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
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Provisions referred to
행정소송법 제8조, 민사소송법 제173조 제1항, 제185조 제1항, 제2항, 민사소송규칙 제51조
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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