Open Decision Ledger · Competition & fair trade
Judgment omitted the effect of payments already made on the unpaid construction fees
Supreme Court, Aug. 14, 2025, 2025Da210535 (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: 공사대금·사용료·손해배상(기)
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where the court below fixed the total construction fees and additional fees owed, but did not compare them with the payments the defendant said it had already made, had it erred by omitting to decide whether unpaid fees remained at all?
Holding
Yes. Because the plaintiff itself had deducted from its total claim the construction fees it had already received, the outcome and the extent of the primary claim depended on how much the defendant had in fact paid. The Supreme Court held that deciding nothing about those payments was an omission that affected the judgment, and reversed the whole primary claim for retrial.
Points at issue, verbatim
을 회사가 이미 지급하였다고 주장하는 공사대금의 액수 및 이를 공제한 후 미지급 공사대금의 존재 여부에 관하여 판단하지 아니한 원심판결에 판단누락 등의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
A case in which it was held that the judgment of the court below contained an error such as an omission of determination in that it did not determine the amount of the construction price claimed by B Co., Ltd. to have already been paid and whether unpaid construction price remained after deducting the same.
Disposition
Partly reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결 중 본소청구 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 광주지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed with respect to the claim of the main action, and the case as to this part is remanded to the Gwangju District Court.
Form of the test
Existing test applied Read from the decision
을 회사가 이미 지급하였다고 주장하는 공사대금의 액수 및 이를 공제한 후 미지급 공사대금의 존재 여부에 관하여 판단하지 아니한 원심판결에 판단누락 등의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
A case in which it was held that the judgment of the court below contained an error such as an omission of determination in that it did not determine the amount of the construction price claimed by B Co., Ltd. to have already been paid and whether unpaid construction price remained after deducting the same.
Factors
- 추가 공사가 이루어지자, 갑이 을 회사를 상대로 공사대금 등의 지급을 구하는 본소를 제기하고
- 을 회사는 이미 공사대금을 지급하였다거나 공사 하자를 이유로 손해배상을 구하는 반소를 제기한 사안에서
- 위 공사대금과 추가 공사대금의 합계액을 인정하면서도
- 을 회사가 이미 지급하였다고 주장하는 공사대금의 액수 및 이를 공제한 후 미지급 공사대금의 존재 여부에 관하여 판단하지 아니한
Unofficial English translation
• where additional work was carried out, A filed a main action against B Co., Ltd. seeking payment of the construction price, etc., and
• in a case where B Co., Ltd. filed a counterclaim seeking damages on the ground that it had already paid the construction price or on the ground of defects in the work,
• while recognizing the aggregate amount of the construction price and the additional construction price,
• the judgment of the court below, which did not determine the amount of the construction price claimed by B Co., Ltd. to have already been paid and whether unpaid construction price remained after deducting the same,
Relation to precedent
Cannot be determined Not in the decision
Decisions referred to
해당 본문 참조
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
Once the court below fixes the amount the defendant actually paid, what evidence is enough to deduct it from the KRW 384,523,565?
The retrial judgment from the Gwangju District Court will show how the paid amount was set against the total fees. Any change to Article 423 of the Civil Procedure Act, the ground of reversal listed in this decision, would also call for a fresh reading.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-24
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 “Once the court below fixes the amount the defendant actually paid, what evidence is enough to deduct it from the KRW 384,523,565?” vs Independent “What amount was actually paid toward the construction price, and what unpaid balance, if any, remains after deduction?”
The primary reading asks what evidence suffices for deduction, whereas the independent reading asks what amounts were actually paid and remain unpaid.
을 회사가 이미 지급하였다고 주장하는 공사대금의 액수 및 이를 공제한 후 미지급 공사대금의 존재 여부에 관하여 판단하지 아니한 원심판결에 판단누락 등의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례Raw 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 Gwangju District Court, in its judgment of 24 January 2025 (2023Na90902, 2023Na90919, 2023Na90926), fixed the construction fees at KRW 352,000,000 including VAT, as stated in the construction agreement, and found the defendant owed a further KRW 32,523,565 in additional fees, that is KRW 384,523,565 in all, with delay interest. It rejected the plaintiff's claim that the agreed price was 94% of the fees the defendant had received from the main contractor, and found no fraud, mistake or unfair determination of the subcontract price under the Subcontracting Act.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court found no error in the fact-finding on the plaintiff's grounds, including the Subcontracting Act, and none in the fact-finding on the defendant's grounds. But the defendant had said at the first-instance twelfth hearing that it had paid KRW 423,770,525 in all, and the plaintiff had admitted receiving KRW 408,659,139, while the court below neither compared those figures with KRW 384,523,565 nor decided anything about them. That omission went to the outcome of the primary claim, so the whole of the primary claim was reversed and remanded to the Gwangju District Court, and the counterclaim portion was left undisturbed.
Distinguishing conditions
- A case in which the court below decides, on the parties' contentions and evidence, whether payments already made exceed the total fees so that nothing remains unpaid.
- A dispute in which the amount already paid is not in issue, so that the total owed decides the primary claim by itself.
- The counterclaim portion, which the order did not reverse.
Record verification notes
Before relying on this decision, put the total fees the court finds, including every item of additional work, on one side, and on the other side the payments the defendant proves, with the dates and vouchers it submits, such as the account statements the defendant submitted as exhibits at the first-instance twelfth hearing (Ulgap Nos. 51 to 61). Note that the plaintiff itself deducted the receipts from its claim, so the figure the court fixes for the payments decides the claim, in whole or in part. Confirm that the judgment below truly says nothing on the payments, since the Supreme Court reversed for omission rather than for a wrong finding.
From the official text
Points at issue
갑이 을 주식회사로부터 ‘공영주차장 주차전용 건축물 신축공사(건축, 기계)’ 중 철근콘크리트공사를 일괄 재하도급받아 공사대금을 약정한 후 공사를 수행하였는데, 공사 과정에서 추가 공사가 이루어지자, 갑이 을 회사를 상대로 공사대금 등의 지급을 구하는 본소를 제기하고, 이에 대하여 을 회사는 이미 공사대금을 지급하였다거나 공사 하자를 이유로 손해배상을 구하는 반소를 제기한 사안에서, 위 공사대금과 추가 공사대금의 합계액을 인정하면서도 을 회사가 이미 지급하였다고 주장하는 공사대금의 액수 및 이를 공제한 후 미지급 공사대금의 존재 여부에 관하여 판단하지 아니한 원심판결에 판단누락 등의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
In a case where A received a subcontract on a lump-sum basis from B Co., Ltd. for the reinforced concrete work in the "New Construction of a Building Exclusively for Public Parking Lot Parking (Architecture, Machinery)", agreed upon the construction price, and carried out the work, and where, when additional work was carried out in the course of the work, A filed a main action against B Co., Ltd. seeking payment of the construction price, etc., and B Co., Ltd. in turn filed a counterclaim seeking damages on the ground that it had already paid the construction price or on the ground of defects in the work, it was held that the judgment of the court below contained an error such as an omission of determination in that, while recognizing the aggregate amount of the construction price and the additional construction price, it did not determine the amount of the construction price claimed by B Co., Ltd. to have already been paid and whether unpaid construction price remained after deducting the same.
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
원심판결 중 본소청구 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 광주지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed with respect to the claim of the main action, and the case as to this part is remanded to the Gwangju District Court.
Provisions referred to
민사소송법 제423조
Read 2026-10-24 · Cross-read 2026-10-24. 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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