2017, Vol., No.74

DONG-A LAW REVIEW 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.65

pISSN : 1225-3405 / eISSN : 2713-5470
https://journal.kci.go.kr/dongalaw

This paper is to review the human existence and the origin of academic thought of professor Lee, Hang-nyeong(So-go), paying due regard to his whole life. He studied laws at Kyeong-seong imperial university. After the freedom from Japanese imperialism he took up the study of philosophy of law and civil law, but he did not release his hold on literature. He made the best use of Literature, which could resolve the all doubts of life. Literature has creativeness, conscience and idealized view, but Jurisprudence attatches importance to actuality, concreteness and practical aspect. Therefore he expected that these two realms are to fuse into reconciliation for the pursuit of right human society. Also Lee Professor enthusiastically studied the origin of Korean thought and combined it with his life which is connecting academic works and religions. Especially He firmly maintained the inter-disciplinary view which should have the integrated appreation on various academic realms, such as Literature․History․Philosophy․Oriental thought․Law and the like. He spoke his mind that it was very important to study the respect for man’s life and dignity, conscience, autonomy in his philosophy of law. But also in religious life, he believed in various religions such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity etc.. After the freedom from Japanese imperialism, he continuously lived a penitential life because he had been a public career under the Japanese colonial period. Eventually I expect that we have to carefully introduce his academic and educational thought into our risk society which is in a state of confusion.

In Korea, there has been an on going controversy over the adoption of punitive damages. Among the legal scholars, the overriding opinion over the system was mostly negative. However, recently the argument that punitive damages should be adopted in specific cases started gaining momentum and in March 11th, 2011, with the revision of the “Fair Transactions in Subcontracting Act” punitive damage was first adopted. In addition, punitive damage system was adopted in “Act on the Protection, etc. of Fixed-Term and Part-Time Employees,” “Use and Protection of Credit Information Act”, and “Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc”, thereby becoming law in force. Due to the casualties caused by Oxy Reckitt Benckiser Group plc.’s sale of humidifier sanitizers, the public is demanding that punitive damage applies comprehensively to Product Liability Law. The national assembly considered the public argument and suggested the adoption of punitive damages in various acts and some of them have been ratified. So Korea’s punitive damage system will be compared with that of the US, which could be deemed as the origin of punitive damage system and Korea’s current punitive damage system will be assessed and an effective method to implement punitive damages successfully will be suggested.

Generally, a party that establishes a breach of contract claim may recover benefit of the bargain damages to put it in the position it would have enjoyed had the contract not been breached. Such damages may include the profits the party would have made had the contract been fully performed. The claimed lost profits may be general damages, consequential damages, or a combination of both. Because damages for lost profits are too speculative to be defined, courts have had a trend toward limiting the power of juries to award damages for lost profits. The trend includes a popular legal rule, foreseeability, derived from Hadley v. Baxendale. However, there is a transformation from the foreseeability to a reasonable certainty rule in determining whether to award damages for lost profits. That is, reasonable certainty as a new rule limiting lost profits has spread in the US damage law. Because the lost profits are relevant to future interests not occurred in @@ the plaintiffs’ claim for lost profits are speculative as a matter of law. In that case, even though the damages are reasonably foreseeable at the outset of the contract, whether or not they would occur is still uncertain. There is a likelihood of that occurrence. Thus, we can assume that damages for lost profits are foreseeable, but they are not likely to occur. For example, while foreseeability to lost profits may be easily recognized in the commercial contract between business entities, it is very difficult to prove lost profits damages with reasonable certainty in the future. In this case, the reasonable certainty rule rather than the foreseeability rule plays a leading role in limiting awarding damages for lost profits.