Supreme Court: "Intentional Refusal to Receive Mail is Considered Delivered"

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] The Supreme Court has ruled that if registered mail is refused in order to prevent the exercise of rights, it should be interpreted as having been delivered at the moment of refusal.

On the 7th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Lee Gitaek) overturned the lower court's ruling, which partially dismissed the plaintiff's claim in the appeal case where landowner Mr. A sued the housing redevelopment association B for delayed interest payment, and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court with a ruling in favor of the plaintiff.

Mr. A owned real estate in the housing redevelopment project area in Dongan-gu, Anyang City, in May 2012, thereby gaining membership in the association, but he did not apply for allocation and became a cash settlement target.

However, when negotiations with the association over compensation did not proceed smoothly, Mr. A sent a petition for expropriation decision to the association in February 2016 via registered mail with delivery confirmation. However, the mail was returned three times with "refused receipt."

The redevelopment association claimed they did not receive Mr. A's petition and only applied for the expropriation decision to the local land expropriation committee in January 2017, a year later. Mr. A filed a lawsuit demanding payment of 520 million won in delayed interest, arguing that the redevelopment association unjustly delayed the application, causing him financial damage.

The first trial focused on the fact that when Mr. A sent the petition for the expropriation decision, only the legal representative's name was written in the "sender" section on the envelope, and Mr. A's name was not included. Based on this, it was difficult to refute the redevelopment association's claim that they returned the mail without knowing that it contained Mr. A's petition.

The second trial also rejected Mr. A's claim for the same reason.

The Supreme Court's judgment was different. The court held that since the redevelopment association and Mr. A had not agreed on the compensation amount, it was a situation where it was sufficiently foreseeable that Mr. A would apply for the expropriation decision at that time. Therefore, the association should have checked the contents of the mail, as it was expected that Mr. A would send the petition.

The court stated, "It is against the principle of good faith to deny the effect of the sender's declaration by unjustly refusing to accept registered mail," and ruled that "Mr. A's petition for the expropriation decision can be considered to have reached association B."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.