The costs of appeal by the Plaintiff are assessed against the Defendants.

1. Judgment on the Plaintiff’s grounds of appeal

A. As to the ground of appeal No. 1, the determination of the finding of facts as to the grounds for limitation of liability, such as comparative negligence, or the limitation ratio is within the discretionary authority of the fact-finding court, unless it is deemed that the principle of equity is clearly unreasonable.

(see, e.g., Supreme Court Decisions 2014Da83319, Oct. 29, 2015; 2015Da22496, May 31, 2017). According to the reasoning of the lower judgment, the lower court acknowledged the circumstances in its reasoning based on the evidence adopted, and limited the Defendants’ liability for damages arising from the Defendants’ tort to 40% of the amount of damages.

The judgment below

Examining the reasoning in light of the aforementioned legal principles and the record, the fact-finding or its determination on the grounds for limitation of liability by the lower court is not considerably unreasonable in light of the principle of equity.

As alleged in the grounds of appeal, the lower court did not err by misapprehending the legal doctrine on the limitation of liability beyond the bounds of the principle of free evaluation of evidence against logical and empirical rules.

B. As to the ground of appeal No. 2, the lower court acknowledged that the Defendants’ act of transferring the instant shares to AF Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “AF”) on the premise that the Defendants’ shares totaled 350,000 shares of H (hereinafter “H”) held by the Defendants were shares held by the Plaintiff and of establishing a pledge to secure its implementation constitutes a tort, and that the Plaintiff’s primary claim seeking damages was reasonable. As to the amount of damages, the lower court rejected only a part of the Plaintiff’s claim and dismissed the remainder of the claim on the ground that the Defendants’ liability ratio was limited to 40% as seen earlier.

On the other hand, the court below is around.