1. The Plaintiff’s incidental appeal against Defendant B and Defendant C, and the appeal by Defendant B and Defendant C.

1. We examine the legitimacy of the appeal filed by the above Defendants ex officio in determining the legitimacy of the appeal filed by Defendant B Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Defendant Company”) and Defendant C.

An appeal shall be filed within two weeks from the date on which the judgment of the first instance is served (Article 396(1) of the Civil Procedure Act). Since the above period is a peremptory term (Article 396(2) of the Civil Procedure Act), an appeal filed after the lapse of the above period of appeal is unlawful as it fails to meet the requirements for appeal

Meanwhile, Article 173(1) of the Civil Procedure Act provides that “if a party is unable to observe the peremptory period due to any cause not attributable to him/her, he/she may supplement the procedural acts neglected within two weeks from the date on which such cause ceases to exist.” The reason why the “party” cannot be held liable refers to the reason why the party could not observe the period despite his/her due care to conduct such procedural acts (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2005Da14465, Sept. 15, 2005). The original copy of the first instance judgment of this case is obvious that it was served on Defendant C on May 2, 2019, and on May 7, 2019 on the Defendant Company.

Unless there exist special circumstances, such as the service of the original copy of the judgment in the first instance court is null and void, an appeal shall be filed within two weeks from the date of service of the original copy of the judgment as a peremptory term. As such, Defendant C should have filed an appeal by May 16, 2019, which is within the period of appeal, and the Defendant Company should have filed an appeal by May 21, 2019, respectively. However, since an appeal was filed only on June 10, 2019, the said Defendants’ appeal is unlawful in entirety.

It is difficult to view that the petition of appeal submitted by Defendant D on May 16, 2019 includes the contents premised on the filing of an appeal in the position of the representative of the defendant company. Therefore, it is difficult to view that Defendant D filed an appeal as the representative of the defendant company with the filing of an appeal.