Episode 9

“Precedent 2001Da66369.”

The sudden mention of a precedent number caused a stir in the room.

“The moment a loan is transferred to a corporation’s account based on an invalid legal act, the corporation’s ‘unjust enrichment’ is established. This does not change even if someone withdraws the loan immediately afterward. In other words, in this case, ‘B’ can also make a ‘claim for restitution of unjust enrichment’ against ‘A’ under Article 741 of the Civil Act.”

At my point, everyone frantically grabbed their law books.

-Article 741 of the Civil Act (Unjust Enrichment) A person who has obtained a benefit through another person’s property or labor without legal cause, and has caused damages to another person thereby, must return that benefit.

“Wh, what does that have to do with anything! The damages ‘B’ suffered are still 500 million won, so the amount of money that they can get back is the same!”

Bae Hyun-joong had finally dropped the honorifics in front of the professor.

That was how anxious he was.

“No. It’s not the same.”

And, I easily refuted his argument.

“In cases where vicarious liability is imposed, ‘B’ has to do something called comparative negligence for their own negligence.”

“Ah, aah…!”

“Article 396 of the Civil Act. Comparative negligence. In cases where compensation for damages is claimed due to non-performance of an obligation, if the creditor has negligence, the court must take it into account and determine the responsibility and amount. Article 764 of the Civil Act. 준용규정 (Application of Provisions). Article 396 also applies to vicarious liability.”

Simply put, it was like this.

That guy did something bad to me.

And so, I suffered damages.

But when I thought about it, there was also a part of that damage that had occurred because I had made some kind of mistake.

In such cases, the concept of comparative negligence is to deduct the portion of the damages that corresponds to my mistake, or negligence, from the amount of damages to be claimed.

“‘B’ bank’s negligence was not gross negligence, so it is possible to impose vicarious liability on the corporation. But since it is a fact that there was negligence, it has to be offset, and that would inevitably reduce the amount that can be claimed. On the other hand, if you claim restitution of unjust enrichment, that is not the case.”

In conclusion, the amount of money that ‘B’ can get back depends on what the basis of the claim is.

Claiming restitution of unjust enrichment under Article 741 was more beneficial to the client ‘B’ than imposing vicarious liability under Article 35.

“Do you need any more explanation, professor?”

I passed the baton to Professor Park Soo-geun.

“…What about what you wrote on the board?”

“Two lines for the requirements of unjust enrichment and a precedent that says it’s possible. One line for stating that vicarious liability is also established, but there is a possibility of comparative negligence on this side. And one line for the conclusion that they should claim restitution of unjust enrichment.”

Of course, if you wrote your actual answer sheet like that, it would be a disaster.

Reviewing the vicarious liability of corporations was also an important issue, and you had to carefully examine the requirements and whether they were met.

If you didn’t write it because it seemed obvious, all the points for that would be gone.

But Bae Hyun-joong was going to do all that anyway, wasn't he? It was easy to predict that just by looking at the amount he had written on the board.

If you were going to argue anyway, it was much more impactful to destroy all of it with just three or four lines.

This wasn't an answer sheet writing competition, and it wasn't a test either.

It was a presentation.

In the end, a presentation was nothing more than a fight over who looked more plausible and who could control the atmosphere.

And, at that point, I had won a landslide victory.

“Wow… amazing.”

“Bae Hyun-joong’s explanation of the issues in the corporation part wasn’t bad either, but Park Yoo-seung is smoothly going through the entire scope of civil law, all the way to unjust enrichment, which is in the obligations part, and constructing a logical argument.”

“Hey. Didn’t you say that he was your school’s top troublemaker?”

“He’s so cool. Is that how much you have to know to become a lawyer…”

The atmosphere had changed in an instant.

The buzzing that had been a nasty noise was now a hymn for me.

“Alright, quiet. Quiet. Class hasn’t ended yet.”

Professor Park Soo-geun asked.

“Park Yoo-seung.”

“Yes, professor.”

“Have you perhaps been preparing for exams? A patent attorney, or a judicial scrivener, or perhaps the court administrative exam… The bar exam was abolished a while ago, so considering your age, it can’t be that.”

No. I’m a former bar exam second-stage passer.

Of course, I couldn’t say that.

I shook my head.

It was true that ‘Park Yoo-seung’ had never prepared for such an exam, so it wasn’t a lie.

“Perfect. To be honest, it wasn’t that difficult of an issue, but it’s rare for prospective freshmen to construct an answer by connecting such a wide range of civil law concepts at this level.”

Professor Park Soo-geun was impressed.

“It was also perceptive of you to adjust the emphasis after seeing the difference in the nuance of the question. You usually need to spend a few years preparing for exams to develop that kind of skill…”

The professor smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

“Group 10 gets 5 bonus points. Group 9… thank you for your hard work. You may both return to your seats.”

“Thank you, professor.”

A clear difference.

A decisive victory.

I smiled at Bae Hyun-joong as if I was showing off, and he barely squeezed out a reply while trembling with a flushed face.

“…Th, thank, you…”

* * *

“Alright, cheers!”

After all the classes had ended, Han Seol clinked her soju glass against mine at a barbeque restaurant that we had visited after a long time.

“You’re really paying, right?”

“Park Yoo-seung. Have you ever seen me go back on my word? Eat, eat.”

Han Seol’s voice was quite excited.

Thanks to being possessed by a rich family’s troublemaker son, I would never have to worry about running out of money wherever I went, but there was no reason for me to refuse if she was offering to buy.

After all, the most delicious meat in the world was the meat that someone else bought.

“Did you see that guy’s face? He looked like the world had completely collapsed on him.”

Apparently, that Bae Hyun-joong guy had been bothering her for a long time and had been quite annoying.

Even if she told him not to, he was trapped in his own delusions and would never listen.

That was why Han Seol felt very satisfied after seeing him get put in his place today.

“I hate that kind of guy. He ranks people and openly ignores people who he thinks are inferior to him.”

“Didn’t you also tell me not to get in your way when you first met me in the classroom?”

“Hey, that’s different!”

I knew.

That Han Seol didn’t say it with bad intentions.

On the contrary, she probably tried to somehow carry even a troublemaker like Park Yoo-seung and get good scores together.

Since Park Yoo-seung in the original story was such a piece of trash, the best way was to just let him stay still.

“I’m joking. I’m joking.”

“You scared me! I thought you were still holding a grudge about what happened back then.”

Only then did her crumpled expression brighten up.

In the original story, Han Seol always had a stiff expression whenever she appeared, so it was hard to see her smiling face.

So much so that the readers would often complain in the comments, saying, ‘She looks much prettier with a bright expression, so why is she always looking grim?’

That suddenly came to mind, so I threw out a line.

“How about you try smiling like that more often in your daily life? It looks much better.”

“Wh, wha, cough, cough!”

Han Seol, who had been stuffing a lettuce wrap into her mouth, choked and coughed.

She should have eaten more slowly.

I pulled out a few wet wipes and handed them to her.

She was glaring at me with a dissatisfied look, but she also thanked me as she received the wipes, which was quite funny.

Just how diligent could she be?

“But, don’t you have a curfew? Is it okay for you to be eating meat here?”

“…Yeah. My curfew was 8 o’clock when I was an undergrad, but my mom extended it to 9 o’clock when I came to law school.”

“That’s good. Hey, the meat is delicious. You’re pretty good at grilling meat.”

“Right? When I was the head of the department, I was called the goddess of the barbeque grill at the MT!”

‘That’s exactly the same as in the original story.’

Han Seol’s mother was a so-called ‘helicopter mom.’

From her school days, she had tried to manage her schedule in minute-by-minute detail, and it was the same even now that she was an adult.

She was extremely controlling, making her report her daily study goals and setting curfews.

It was only because she was a naturally excellent student that she hadn’t gone astray a long time ago due to that kind of parenting style.

I ate the meat that Han Seol had pushed to the side and sympathized with her.

Hmm. Delicious.

“So.”

Han Seol, who had been eating diligently, began.

“How did you know this time?”

“What?”

“That the professor’s answer was unjust enrichment. You know, since it was a problem that was given after learning about the concept of corporations, it’s easy to be focused on that side.”

Han Seol confessed that she would have solved it using Article 35 as well.

Instead, the grounds she would have stated would have been much more abundant than what Bae Hyun-joong had, and she would have earned a considerable amount of bonus points at that point.

But fundamentally, she would have failed to see the professor’s true intention, which was the same.

“There were too many additional conditions in the problem. So much that it felt contrived.”

“…Huh?”

“The problem of the relationship between a corporation and its CEO is originally a set with agency. It’s written in Article 59, Paragraph 2 that the provisions related to agency also apply to CEOs.”

But what was the problem that Park Soo-geun had given?

It told you not to examine if the CEO’s actions were an unauthorized agency, not to examine apparent agency, and not to examine abuse of representative authority.

Each of those was a basic, A-grade issue!

The reason why he had reduced and limited the scope of what you had to review like that was obvious.

Was it because Park Soo-geun was an angel of a professor? That wasn’t it.

It was because he wanted something else.

“And when I read it again, the phrase ‘you are a lawyer’ was read a bit differently. It’s usually unnecessary, that kind of description.”

“…You can approach it that way too.”

Han Seol let out a small exclamation of admiration and then changed her expression and began to mock me.

“Well, it was a bit cool though. What was it? ‘The effort to bring the maximum benefit to the client as a lawyer. Have you put in that effort?’ was it?”

“…Hey, don’t!”

I had tried to create a certain atmosphere because I wanted to get one over on Bae Hyun-joong, but seeing Han Seol mock me like that made a feeling of shame wash over me belatedly.

As if she had caught on to something, Han Seol smiled mischievously.

“Wow, I thought you were some lawyer from a movie or drama. I almost gave you a standing ovation because you were so cool.”

“I told you not to…”

“‘Bae Hyun-joong, fellow student~. Really, is this the best you can dooo~?’”

“Kyah!”

In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore and gulped down my glass, and then I emptied the glass that Han Seol had refilled after we had ‘cheers’ once again.

The soju tasted particularly bitter.

‘I should have kept it down. I tried to create an atmosphere for no reason…’

Actually, this problem was relatively easy for me.

First, all of the important issues were written in the articles as is.

For me, who was still lacking in absolute knowledge, problems where I could use the law books, a legal cheat sheet, were a stage that I had to kneel down and thank.

On the contrary, it would have been much more difficult for me to write the answer like Bae Hyun-joong.

To write about the vicarious liability of corporations, you had to state the standards of job-relatedness, which were not in the articles, and the keywords of the apparent theory.

The length of the answer itself was different.

The idea of connecting it to ‘unjust enrichment’ wasn’t particularly special either.

In our days, that is, during the bar exam days, 40 and 50-point problems that combined all the different parts would often appear in civil law.

Therefore, no matter what case you saw, you had no choice but to get into the habit of reviewing everything at once, from the establishment of the legal act to the rights that the parties could claim, and even the issues in procedural law.

Now, they were dividing up the syllabus by unit and the tests and presentations were also done by unit, so the students’ thought processes weren't organically connected.

It was something that everyone would do later when they had learned everything and were preparing for the exams in earnest.

“What about the precedent number? How did you know that?”

“That was the precedent that I was looking at 5 minutes before class.”

I had been carefully reading through the part about the vicarious liability of corporations for my pre-studying.

I had suddenly remembered that I had often connected this to unjust enrichment in the past, so I had looked at the later pages with a nostalgic feeling.

There was a familiar precedent that I hadn’t seen for a long time, so I had kept looking at it and had memorized it naturally.

Actually, the issues that I had mentioned in class weren’t all of them.

There were more things that I couldn’t miss, such as whether the parties could use both different means of redress, such as vicarious liability and restitution of unjust enrichment, or whether they had to choose one, and if they could use both, how the overlapping areas were handled.

It was a card that I could have pulled out if Professor Park Soo-geun had asked for additional explanations. Fortunately, he was impressed enough with just getting the answer right, so he didn’t look beyond that.

“You just memorized it naturally? That’s amazing in itself…”

There was nothing more embarrassing than being praised by this woman for memorization.

I shook my head and then focused on the meat, and Han Seol also began to focus her mouth on something more valuable instead of talking any more.

“Alright. Well, I ate well. Please buy me food again next time.”

“You’re talking about next time. How expensive do you think meat is these days?”

We left early to match Han Seol’s curfew.

Although she was grumbling, her expression was very bright as she turned around.

She must have enjoyed the meat quite a bit.

Well, I enjoyed it quite a bit too.

This place is good.

“Alright, then. I have to go back too…”

Now that the happy gourmet meal was over, reality was flooding in.

In fact, there were still many things that I had to solve.

Studying was something that I did every day anyway…

The most urgent task at hand was the ghost member, Lee Ha-roo.

I had put Bae Hyun-joong in his place, but the snowball that he had thrown was still rolling.

If I didn’t want to get hit by the attendance score bomb, I had to catch Lee Ha-roo first.

“It’s Friday today, so I have until the weekend.”

But how was I going to catch him? How was I supposed to know where he was?

And even if I did catch him, how was I supposed to make him attend class every day?

“That troublemaker…”