The Supreme Court's first ruling has determined that even if one is not an official ritual leader, a family member who usually manages and visits the ancestral graves has the right to claim damages from those who damaged the graves.
On the 3rd, according to the legal community, the Supreme Court Civil Division 2 (Chief Justice Oh Kyung-mi) overturned the lower court's ruling that had dismissed A's lawsuit against two developers for damages after claiming that his ancestral graves and remains were desecrated, and sent the case back to the Chuncheon District Court.
The four problematic graves are where A's grandparents and parents are interred. The ritual leader responsible for these graves was his nephew and descendant, B. The Supreme Court's precedent states that the ritual leader is generally decided through an agreement among family members, and if no such agreement exists, the eldest direct descendant of the deceased is designated. However, A has been managing the four graves by mowing them and holding rituals every year.
The developers excavated the four graves with an excavator in 2018, collecting four remains in a metal container and burning them before burying them near the original gravesite. They were reportedly planning to develop the land where the graves were located into dwellings.
Previously, B, the ritual leader, was found to have signed a burial relocation compliance document stating he would not object to the relocation of the graves.
A learned of these facts belatedly and filed a damages claim lawsuit against the developers.
Both the first and second trials ruled against A. The court stated, 'A is not the ritual leader, so it cannot be said that damages occurred due to the actions of the developers' and thus dismissed the claim for damages. It meant that the right to claim for damages from the desecration of graves is only acknowledged for the ritual leader.
However, the Supreme Court overturned the second trial's ruling. The Supreme Court noted that '(the defendants, as developers) handled the remains in a manner that exceeds socially acceptable norms and desecrated them,' adding, 'The plaintiffs (A), who are the children and grandchildren of the deceased and have actively managed the graves, may have the right to claim damages as their personal rights, including emotional distress, were violated.' Therefore, it stated, 'The lower court made an error that affected the ruling by misunderstanding the legal principles regarding the recognition of compensation for damages.'
A Supreme Court official commented, 'This ruling is the first Supreme Court precedent that explicitly judged the claims for damages from family members who are not ritual leaders in desecration cases,' stating that 'the chances of family members who have practically managed the ancestral graves by visiting them regularly claiming damages have increased.'