KLAWGURU.COM

Korean Law Demystified!

Forty Years Late Is Not Too Late: Supreme Court Rules May 18 Families Can Still Sue for Emotional Damages

By ,

Korea’s Supreme Court has ruled that bereaved families of victims of the May 18, 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement can still pursue state compensation claims for emotional suffering — finding that the statute of limitations did not begin running until a 2021 Constitutional Court decision removed the legal barrier that had blocked those claims. Here are the key points.

Issue

Had the statute of limitations on emotional damages claims by May 18 victims’ families already expired — or was the clock suspended until a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling struck down the provision that had effectively prevented those claims from being brought?

Background

  • The May 18, 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement was violently suppressed by martial law forces, resulting in deaths and serious injuries among civilian participants.
  • A 1990 compensation law provided government payments to victims and their families. Critically, it included a deemed-settlement clause: accepting compensation was treated as constituting a court-approved settlement of all claims arising from the movement. This effectively barred recipients from bringing any further civil claims against the state.
  • In May 2021, the Constitutional Court struck down the deemed-settlement clause as it applied to emotional damages, ruling that treating acceptance of compensation as a waiver of the right to sue for psychological suffering constituted an excessive restriction of the constitutional right to state compensation.
  • Following that decision, 23 family members of May 18 victims filed suit for emotional damages.

Lower Court Decisions

  • Both the trial and appellate courts acknowledged the state’s liability in principle but dismissed the claims on statute of limitations grounds, finding that the three-year limitation period had long since expired. Both decisions predated the Supreme Court’s January 2026 en banc ruling on the same legal question.

Supreme Court Decision

  • The Supreme Court (Civil Division 2, presiding Justice Eom Sang-pil) reversed the lower courts on April 30, 2026, and remanded to Gwangju High Court — applying the same legal framework established in its January 22, 2026 en banc decision (2023다285162).
  • The court acknowledged that the families had been able to identify the state’s unlawful conduct and the resulting harm around the time compensation payments were made in the early 1990s. However, a legal impediment prevented them from actually exercising their emotional damages claims before the 2021 Constitutional Court decision.
  • The deemed-settlement clause was that impediment. As long as it remained in force, accepting compensation was treated as a full settlement — making it legally impossible to bring a separate emotional damages claim. The statute of limitations cannot run against a right that cannot be exercised.
  • The limitation period therefore began only on May 27, 2021 — the date of the Constitutional Court’s decision. Since the plaintiffs filed suit within three years of that date, their claims were timely.
  • On delay interest, the court noted that where a very long period has elapsed between the original unlawful act and the close of trial proceedings — during which currency values and national income levels have changed substantially — delay interest may exceptionally be calculated from the close of trial rather than from the date of the original harm.

Key Takeaways

  • The statute of limitations does not run during a period when a legal obstacle makes it objectively impossible to exercise the right in question. This is the principle of impediment to the exercise of rights (권리행사 장애사유).
  • The deemed-settlement clause in the 1990 compensation law constituted precisely such an impediment for emotional damages claims. Its unconstitutionality, declared in 2021, opened the litigation window — and the three-year clock started from that date, not from the 1980 events or the 1990s compensation payments.
  • This ruling follows directly from the Supreme Court’s January 2026 en banc decision and applies that framework to a further group of May 18 families.
  • In long-delayed state liability cases, courts may apply delay interest from the close of trial proceedings rather than the original harm date, to account for significant changes in economic conditions over the intervening decades.

Why This Matters

This decision has broad significance for victims of state violence whose legal claims were suppressed by legislation that was later found unconstitutional. It establishes that unconstitutional statutory barriers to bringing claims suspend the limitation period — meaning survivors and their families are not permanently time-barred simply because the law that blocked their access to justice remained on the books for decades. For practitioners handling historical state liability cases, it confirms that the relevant limitation period runs from the removal of the legal impediment, not from the original harm — a principle with potential application well beyond the May 18 context.

Article: https://www.lawtimes.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=221449

Leave a comment