Section 1: Parties and Need for Remedy
Chapter 3: Entity Eligible for Remedy and Need for Remedy, etc.
4. Expiration of Contract and Need for Remedy
4.3 Need for Remedy Upon Recognition of the Right to Expect Contract Renewal
| Supreme Court Decision on July 8, 2005, Case 2002du8640 | |||||
| * Plaintiff, Appellee: Lee ○○
* Defendant: Chairman of the Central Labor Commission * Intervening Defendant, Appellant: Korea Culture Policy Development Institute 1. Facts: a. The intervenor corporation has personnel management regulations that state employment is contractual, initially for one year, with reappointments for two years. The director is to decide on reappointments one month before the end of the contract period based on performance evaluations (Articles 82, Clauses 1, 2, and 4). A personnel committee is established to deliberate on matters related to reappointment criteria (Article 45). Additionally, detailed provisions regarding the timing, method, and transparency of performance evaluations, as well as the criteria for reappointment decisions based on these evaluations, are specified in employee evaluation regulations and operational rules for research performance assessments. Notably, Article 20 of the employee evaluation regulations categorizes performance grades from 1 to 5, and Article 29 specifies that individuals in grades 1 to 3 are decided for reappointment, grade 4 Case s are deliberated by the personnel committee for reappointment, and grade 5 individuals are decided for non-reappointment. b. The intervenor argued that even if the plaintiff won the lawsuit, since the contract between the intervenor corporation and the plaintiff was set to expire on December 31, 1999, and the contract period was from January 1 to December 31, 1999, the employment contract would merely extend for another year from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2000, after which the employment relationship would again terminate. Thus, the plaintiff's lawsuit lacks legal interest and should be dismissed. 2. Court Judgment: a. Regarding the claim that there is no legal interest because the intervenor corporation has dissolved: Although the intervenor corporation has completed its resolution to dissolve, as long as the liquidation process is not finished, it cannot be said that the corporate entity ceases to exist simply because of the dissolution resolution. Therefore, this claim is not accepted. b. Regarding the claim that there is no legal interest because the contract period has expired: For employees appointed for a definite period, their employment status naturally ends when that period expires, and they automatically retire if no reappointment contract is signed without needing any special procedure. Although the principle is that the need for remedy ceases if the employment relationship ends due to the expiration of the contract period while the employee is disputing the effect of a dismissal through an unfair dismissal remedy application, if the regulations or contract that served as the basis for the appointment impose an obligation on the employer to reappoint the employee or provide procedural and requirement bases for reappointment, and the employee has a legitimate expectation of being reappointed according to those procedures, then excluding the employee from reappointment by the employer in violation of those procedures can be substantively equated with unfair dismissal. Therefore, the employee has a legal interest in disputing the validity of the exclusion from reappointment even after the appointment period has expired. According to the intent of these regulations, it can be sufficiently acknowledged that even though the intervenor corporation's researchers are appointed for a definite period, they have a legitimate expectation of being reappointed through a fair assessment based on reasonable standards, provided they achieve a certain grade level in their performance evaluations, unless there are special circumstances preventing reappointment. c. Regarding the legitimacy of excluding the plaintiff from reappointment: According to the reasons of the original judgment, the original trial maintained the first-instance judgment that the exclusion of the plaintiff from reappointment was clearly unfair, amounting to a de facto dismissal. This decision was based on properly adopted evidence that, although the plaintiff received the lowest score in the performance evaluation, an unusually low score given by one of the three evaluators during the qualitative evaluation of the 1999 research performancewhich constituted 45% of the overall evaluationwas deemed an irrational evaluation lacking objectivity and fairness. Had a reevaluation opportunity been provided, the plaintiff might have received a different evaluation suitable for reappointment. The intervenor corporation decided to exclude the plaintiff from reappointment the day before the contract expiration and notified the plaintiff of this exclusion without explaining the reasons on the day the contract expired, thereby blocking the plaintiff's opportunities to view the evaluation results, request a reevaluation, or make a request for a trial of the non-reappointment from the beginning, thus leading to automatic retirement. Therefore, the first-instance judgment, which deemed the intervenor corporation's refusal to reappoint the plaintiff as clearly unfair and equivalent to dismissal, was upheld. The court of first instance's judgment on this matter is sufficiently acceptable, and there is no illegality, such as misunderstanding legal principles regarding fixed-term employment relationships and unfair dismissal, as argued in the grounds for appeal. |
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