A Korean court has ruled that a parent whose relentless and sometimes fabricated complaints caused a school administrator to develop depression and facial paralysis must pay ₩30 million in damages — drawing a clear line between legitimate parental advocacy and unlawful interference with educational work. Here are the key points.

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Issue

When a parent’s repeated complaints to a school — some based on events that never occurred — cause a staff member serious physical and psychological harm, does that conduct cross the line from legitimate rights exercise into tortious interference?

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Facts

– Between 2023 and 2024, parent B filed a series of complaints against an elementary school in Jeonju through the school’s website and by phone, targeting Vice Principal A, who was responsible for handling parent complaints.
– The complaints included demands to correct a child’s school record, objections to the child playing basketball while unwell, questions about the absence of subject-specific lesson plans, and complaints about the school returning Teachers’ Day gifts.
– While some of the complained-about events had actually occurred, investigators found that several others were based on things that had never happened at all.
– A suffered extreme stress as a result, developing clinical depression and facial paralysis — conditions that significantly impaired her daily life.
– A sued B for damages.

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Court Decision

– The Jeonju District Court (Judge Hwang Jeong-su) ruled in A’s favor, ordering B to pay ₩30 million in damages plus delay interest.
– The court acknowledged that parents have a legal right to raise concerns about their children’s education, and that schools are obligated to take those concerns seriously.
– However, it held that this right must be exercised in a manner that respects teachers’ professional expertise and protects their authority. Complaints that go beyond that boundary — particularly those based on fabricated events, or that unreasonably interfere with legitimate educational activities — fall outside the scope of lawful rights exercise and constitute tortious conduct.
– The court noted that B’s motivation — concern for her child — was a mitigating factor in assessing the nature of the conduct, but found it insufficient to excuse the pattern of behavior or its consequences.
– In setting the ₩30 million figure, the court weighed the nature and content of the complaints, the duration of the conduct, the frequency of contact, and the severity of A’s resulting physical and psychological harm.

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Key Takeaways

– Parental complaints to schools are a protected form of civic participation — but only within limits. Complaints that are fabricated, disproportionate, or systematically disruptive to legitimate educational activity are not protected.
– Causing physical and psychological harm through sustained abusive complaint behavior can give rise to civil tort liability, regardless of the complainant’s underlying motivation.
– The fact that some complaints were based on events that never occurred was central to the court’s finding of unlawfulness — it distinguished calculated harassment from good-faith advocacy.
– Courts will consider the cumulative pattern of conduct, not just individual complaints in isolation, when assessing whether the line into tortious behavior has been crossed.

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Why This Matters

This ruling arrives amid growing public attention in Korea to the problem of malicious parental complaints against teachers — a phenomenon that has contributed to a documented deterioration in educator mental health and a wave of teacher advocacy legislation in recent years. For school administrators and educators, it confirms that the law does not require them to absorb unlimited abuse in silence: sustained and dishonest complaint campaigns can be met with civil legal action. For parents and their legal advisers, it is a reminder that the right to raise concerns about a child’s education is not unlimited, and that conduct crossing into harassment or fabrication carries real financial consequences.

Article: https://mbiz.heraldcorp.com/article/10736168?ref=naver