Claim for the Price of Goods | Original Judgment Reversed on Appeal and the Unpaid Price of Goods Awarded

🔗The price of goods refers to the payment received in return for selling goods. Once a transaction contract for goods has been formed, the buyer must pay the seller for the goods.

The price of goods is a type of claim and is subject to extinctive prescription.

Extinctive prescription is a system under which, when it is confirmed that the holder of a right has not exercised that right for a certain period or longer, the right is deemed extinguished.

Under the Civil Act, the extinctive prescription for claims is 10 years, but for the right to claim the price of goods a short-term prescription of 3 years applies.

When a suit claiming the price of goods is brought, the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff, so evidence capable of proving the unpaid amount is more important than anything else.

The client was the representative of a machinery and equipment company, and the defendant was a client who had commissioned the equipment work from the client.

The client carried out and delivered the equipment commissioned by the defendant, but the defendant refused to pay on the ground that the equipment was defective.

A suit claiming the price of goods was therefore brought, but it was lost at first instance.

The original judgment held that 'after moving the equipment in question, the client completed installation in a state ready for test operation and mass production, and upon the defendant's inspection and confirmation of the test operation and mass-production readiness it was found to be defective, so the plaintiff did not perform the obligations under the sales contract. The defendant's non-payment of the price of goods is therefore justified.'

Daeryun argued that the client had no obligation to obtain inspection and confirmation of the test operation and mass-production readiness, and that the client had fully performed the seller's obligations under the sales contract by delivering the machine in question to the defendant.

The defendant argues that it was agreed that, once the client completed installation of the machinery and equipment in a state ready for test operation and mass production after moving it, the defendant would take delivery of the machine upon inspection and confirmation of the test operation and mass-production readiness.

The court at first instance likewise held that this obligation had not been performed and rendered judgment against the plaintiff.

The Daeryun attorney, however, argued that the client and the defendant had never entered into such an agreement, and that the seal impressed on the contract clause submitted by the defendant was not the client's seal.

Submitting the client's seal that had been used in the earlier suit claiming the price of goods, the firm emphasized that the contract was forged, as the seal on the contract submitted by the defendant differed in typeface, size, and other respects.