Incident of Family Litigation, Civil Affairs | Divorce and Alimony, etc. - 2020Deudan*****, Uijeongbu District Court

Case Summary: The client’s spouse ran away from home for about two years after a business failure, and his whereabouts were unknown. The difficulty in contacting him made it impossible to proceed with a divorce by mutual agreement.

Applicable law: According to Article 840 of the Civil Law, cause for judicial divorce, either party to a marriage may file for judicial divorce with the family court if they have one of the following grounds.

1. Unfaithful behavior on the part of the spouse

2. Malicious abandonment of the other party by the spouse

3. Sever mistreatment of the spouse by the spouse or his or her immediate family members

4. Severe mistreatment of the spouse’s immediate family member by the spouse

5. The spouse’s life and death have not been certain for more than three years 6. Other grave reason that makes it difficult to continue the marriage.

Counsel’s assistance: The client’s spouse showed no active willingness to divorce and refused to disclose her residence, making the delivery of notice impossible.

As the only information that the client knew about her spouse was a mobile phone number, the counselor advised the client to consistently text the spouse to ensure he was aware of the content of the complaint and arranged a meeting with the client and her spouse at the attorney’s office.

During the meeting, all matters to be discussed on the mediation date were agreed in advance and both parties attended the mediation date and prepared the mediation protocol as previously agreed.

Result: The client successfully divorced her spouse as she desired and obtained sole custody of her children. The mediation ensured that the client’s spouse would pay for child support.

Significance of the result: If the defendant’s address is unknown after filing the divorce complaint, and the defendant remains underserved, it may eventually require a public notice, but this process can be time-consuming.

In this case, continuous delivery of the complaint and reminders to the client’s spouse(defendant) took place at the client’s residence since the defendant’s domicile was not registered.

This enabled the client proceed with the divorce on the initial mediation date. The client was able to obtain a swift divorce because she had already agreed to the settlement prior to the mediation.

Attorney in charge of the case: Park Se-mi