When a person who lost ownership of land due to illegal land readjustment project execution is deemed to have known of such damage.

If there is doubt in the legal reasoning about whether a person who has lost the ownership of land due to an illegal land partition can claim damages due to a legal cause, the time when the court becomes aware of such damages is not the date of the land substitution announcement (68.17.17.) but the date when the collegiate court of all the Supreme Court rendered a judgment that all the victims who suffered damages due to the above project constitute a tort (74Da1584 delivered on April 22, 1975) and the extinctive prescription commences from that time.

Article 766 of the Civil Act

Supreme Court Decision 76Da2984 Delivered on February 22, 1977

Supreme Court Decision 76Da549 Delivered on March 8, 1977

Plaintiff 1 and six others (Attorney Lee Byung-hoon, Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant)

Seoul Special Metropolitan City (Attorney Han-soo, Counsel for the defendant-appellant)

Seoul High Court Decision 74Na1317 delivered on December 29, 1975

The original judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.

The plaintiffs' grounds of appeal are examined.

According to the decision of recognition of the original judgment, since the plaintiffs' land located in the original land zone in the original land zone in the original land zone that the defendant implemented was not provided by them, but the liquidation money was not provided by them, and the liquidation money was also caused damages equivalent to the liquidation money to the plaintiffs by the implementation of the illegal land readjustment project that lost their ownership due to the public announcement of replotting disposition, and thus, the plaintiffs are liable for compensation. The plaintiffs' damages caused thereby are determined to have contracted their claim with short-term extinctive prescription, and their claim is determined to have been contracted with the short-term extinctive prescription, as the land substitution was determined by the decision of the Supreme Court (75.4.22) that the plaintiff's substitute land should not be deemed to have known about the damages caused to the victims who lost their ownership due to the public announcement of replotting as of the main case of the representative of the plaintiffs.

However, in order to run the three-year extinctive prescription of a right to claim damages, the victims must know of the damages, the presumption or concern of the damages, and the offender's act is not sufficient to know about the illegality of the act, and if the damage was not caused by the proximate causal relation with the harmful act, the victims should know about the proximate causal relation between the harmful act and the damage at the same time. If there was no doubt in the legal principles as to the claim for damages due to a certain legal cause, and if there was a conclusion that there was no difference between the harmful act and the damage, it would be possible to claim damages due to the reason that the decision was made on the day of the sentencing (referring to the Supreme Court Decision 76Da2984 delivered on February 22, 77). Accordingly, in this case, the above Supreme Court Decision 75.4.22 delivered on April 22, 75, 2007, which held that the plaintiffs can claim damages due to the defendant's illegal land partitioned project implementation, and thus, the judgment of the court below should be understood as the above legal principles of extinctive prescription.

Justices Kang Jeong-hee (Presiding Justice)