The judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded to Busan High Court.

The grounds of appeal are examined (to the extent of supplement in case of supplemental appellate briefs not timely filed).

1. The Civil Act is a contract under which two or more persons agree to jointly operate a business by mutual investment. It can be deemed that the agreement is limited to the agreement under which a specific business is jointly operated.

(Article 703(1) of the Civil Act provides that voluntary withdrawal of a partner shall be a kind of termination regarding a partnership agreement and shall be made by the declaration of intention to other partners. However, such declaration of intention does not necessarily have to be explicitly expressed, but it may be implied, and whether a voluntary withdrawal is made shall be determined in accordance with the general principles of interpretation of juristic act.

If the voluntary withdrawal of a union member is lawful, barring any special agreement between the union members, the share of the withdrawing union member’s joint withdrawal belongs to the remaining union members (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2005Da7405, Sept. 20, 2007). 2. The lower court acknowledged the following facts, and, in light of this, rejected the Defendant’s assertion that the instant partnership relationship terminated around that time on the grounds that it is difficult to deem the Plaintiff (hereinafter “Plaintiff”) to have withdrawn from the partnership with the Defendant (Counterclaim Plaintiff; hereinafter “Defendant”) around November 2002.

Since November 2002, the Defendant was a sole person with respect to the business registration of the instant hospital, the ownership of the building and site of the hospital, the debtor of the right to collateral security, and the financial account managing the hospital revenues, but solely on such circumstance, it cannot be readily concluded that the Plaintiff left the said hospital.

B. The plaintiff extended a loan of KRW 50 million to the defendant on June 11, 2004, and KRW 100 million on August 11, 2004, as the operating expenses of the hospital of this case, and jointly and severally guaranteed the defendant's loan obligations to the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation on August 29, 2005.