2. The costs of lawsuit shall be borne by the Plaintiff.

A. Although the defendant filed a lawsuit against the plaintiff for a loan claim (hereinafter "prior lawsuit") and lost in the first instance court, on March 26, 2009, the appellate court (Seoul Western District Court 2008Na7394) rendered a favorable judgment that "the plaintiff shall pay to the defendant the amount of KRW 45 million and the amount calculated by the rate of 20% per annum from April 1, 1998 to the date of full payment", and the above judgment was finalized on April 14, 2009.

B. On May 17, 2019, the Plaintiff filed a lawsuit (Seoul Western District Court 2019Na45) against the said final judgment by asserting that the “written statement of performance, declaration of performance, and statement of performance” (hereinafter “instant document”) which was the evidence of the final and conclusive judgment of the prior suit was forged, but partially dismissed on October 17, 2019 and the remaining judgment of dismissing the claim was pronounced.

[Reasons for Recognition] The entry of Gap evidence Nos. 2 through 4, the purport of the whole pleadings

2. The Plaintiff’s assertion was submitted by the Defendant as evidence in the appellate court of the prior suit, and returned the instant document, and the records of the instant case were destroyed, and the Plaintiff was not aware of the content of the instant document, but the said document was not prepared in a genuine manner.

In addition, for the above request for retrial, it should be confirmed whether the defendant has forged the document of this case.

3. Determination

(a) In a case where a lawsuit has already been filed over a legal relationship to be proved by a document, it would be possible to resolve the dispute in the lawsuit, and thus, the filing of a lawsuit to confirm whether the document is authentic does not have the benefit of confirmation, barring special circumstances.

(See Supreme Court Decision 2005Da29290, 29306, Jun. 14, 2007). Moreover, even if the truth of a document seeking confirmation has been determined by a lawsuit, it cannot be said that a document’s legal relationship or legal status to be proved cannot be eliminated, and the said right or legal relationship itself is confirmed in order to eliminate legal uncertainty.