1. Case Overview
The defendant entered into a real estate development project with the plaintiff on property owned by the defendant and executed a real estate sales agreement, transferring ownership of the property to the plaintiff. In addition to the agreement, the parties signed a "Performance Memorandum," stating that ownership of a portion of the property would remain with the defendant.
Subsequently, the defendant filed for a preliminary injunction to prohibit the disposition of the property based on the Performance Memorandum. The court granted the injunction, reasoning that the defendant had a claim for ownership transfer registration due to a genuine ownership restoration arising from a trust arrangement.
However, upon the plaintiff's objection, the court revoked the preliminary injunction. In a related lawsuit filed by the defendant seeking ownership transfer registration, the court dismissed the claim, citing insufficient evidence to recognize the existence of a trust agreement. These decisions were affirmed through appellate review. Consequently, the plaintiff filed a damages lawsuit against the defendant, alleging harm from the unjust preliminary injunction.
2. Court's Decision
(Uijeongbu District Court, Goyang Branch Decision 2024Gadan54993, dated November 7, 2024)
The court held that if a creditor in a preservation proceeding such as an injunction loses the main lawsuit, it is presumed that the creditor acted with intent or negligence, resulting in damages to the debtor. However, this presumption can be overturned if the creditor had reasonable grounds to believe in the existence of the claimed right at the time of filing for the injunction. The court further ruled that if the existence of the right in question depended not on factual discrepancies but on differences in legal interpretation or evaluation, the creditor could not be deemed negligent in believing the right existed. Specifically, the court found that the wording in the Performance Memorandum could serve as evidence supporting the existence of a trust agreement; the main lawsuit's dismissal was based on insufficient evidence rather than definitive proof against the existence of the trust agreement; the burden of proof rested on the defendant, and the dismissal of the claim did not conclusively affirm the nonexistence of the trust agreement; and the defendant had reasonable grounds to argue that the ownership was not fully transferred to the plaintiff, given the circumstances. Thus, the court concluded that the defendant’s presumption of intent or negligence was rebutted, as the issue stemmed from legal interpretation rather than factual inaccuracies.
3. Our Arguments and Role
In claims for damages arising from wrongful lawsuits, courts protect the right to access legal remedies, recognizing such claims only when the lawsuit is deemed grossly unreasonable. However, for wrongful preservation measures like preliminary injunctions, courts generally presume the creditor's intent or negligence unless the defendant provides special circumstances to rebut this presumption. This placed the defendant at a disadvantage in this case.
However, we argued, citing Supreme Court precedents that found no negligence on the part of the execution creditor when the creditor's loss in the main lawsuit resulted not from factual discrepancies but from differences in legal interpretation or evaluation. We also discovered and presented to the court lower court rulings that concluded the execution creditor's intent or negligence could not be established in cases where the creditor lost the main lawsuit due to conflicting interpretations of the content and validity of the contract. In this case, we emphasized that there was no dispute over the fact that the Performance Memorandum between the plaintiff and the defendant had been genuinely prepared. However, the defendant lost the main lawsuit solely due to differences in legal interpretation or evaluation regarding the memorandum's legal validity. Furthermore, we actively argued that, based on the wording of the memorandum and the plaintiff's actions and statements, the defendant, as a layperson, had no choice but to mistakenly believe that the memorandum constituted a nominal trust agreement. As a result, we successfully persuaded the court to overturn the presumption of intent or negligence on the part of the defendant.
