1. The defendant's appeal is dismissed.

2. The costs of appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.

Purport of claim and appeal

1..

1. According to Article 396 of the Civil Procedure Act, an appeal shall be filed within two weeks from the date on which the written judgment was served, and the above period constitutes a peremptory term.

On March 19, 2015, when the Defendant filed the instant appeal, the first instance court’s judgment was served on the Defendant by means of service by public notice, after the lapse of two weeks from December 17, 2013, and thus, the instant appeal did not comply with the peremptory period.

However, the main text of Article 173(1) of the Civil Procedure Act provides that where a party is unable to comply with a peremptory period due to any cause not attributable to him/her, he/she may supplement the litigation by neglecting to do so within two weeks from the date such cause ceases to exist, and “reasons not attributable to the party” in this context refers to a cause for which the party could not comply with the period even though he/she had paid general attention to do the litigation

(2) In light of the legal principles as seen earlier, in cases where litigation was conducted by public notice, the Defendant cannot be deemed to have complied with the peremptory period due to a cause not attributable to the Defendant, barring any special circumstance, in cases where litigation was conducted by public notice from the delivery of the duplicate of the complaint to the date of service by public notice (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2012Da75000, Dec. 13, 2012). However, in cases where litigation documents cannot be served by public notice due to a cause not attributable to the Defendant (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2012Da75000, Dec. 13, 2012), where litigation documents are served by public notice due to a cause ordinarily going through the process of service by public notice from the delivery of the duplicate of the complaint, and thus, the parties are obliged to investigate the progress of litigation. Therefore, if the parties failed to abide by the peremptory period due to a cause not attributable to the parties.