The following instructions will provide directions and materials for dealing with and accomplishing Assignment. The purposes of this Exercise is to:
1) Expose you to an important aspect and increasingly frequent set of issues in transnational litigation, the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments; and
2) Introduce you to the "oral exam", a method very common in many legal education programs in other countries.
3) Introduce you to how to orally articulate legal issues, factual application and argument.
You will be examined orally about your understanding of how to identify the issues and apply the relevant law to hypothetic facts, which involves the enforcement in the United States (specifically California) of judgments made by foreign courts. You will be graded Credit/No Credit. This Assignment replaces Assignment #4 (about MOUs) that was mentioned in the original syllabus.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
You are a California-licensed lawyer and are sitting in your Los Angeles law office when Ms. Susie Park enters and informs you about the following. You accept her request to represent her.
Current Litigation to Enforce SK Judgment
1) On June 15, 2015, Ms. Park, a U.S. citizen (born in Texas) and living in Los Angeles since 2010 received an envelope, which was personally handed her by an official process server, containing a copy of a South Korean (SK) court's default judgment, dated January 15, 2015adjudicating that her and her father were jointly liable for the non-payment of a loan in their names for $1,500,000 plus interest of 30% per annum from the date of judgment.
2) The documents also included a complaint against Ms. Park (Defendant) for enforcement of the SK judgment, which was filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court on June 12, 2015. The Plaintiff is the Korean Deposit Insurance Corporation [KDIC] (like the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC]), which was assigned the role of collecting assets (trustee-creditor) of a bankrupt SK bank, named the Seoul Bank in Seoul, SK.
Loan Facts
3) Ms. Park (Defendant) is allegedly a co-signer of a loan on which her father named himself, Jun Park, and his daughter, Susie Park, as co-signers. (Ms. Park claims she didn't sign any documents regarding the loan and knew nothing about the loan until she was personally served the complaint for enforcement of a foreign judgment on June 15, 2015. She was a medical student at the timethe loan was made, living at the university that was 500 kms away from Seoul).
4) The loan was with the Seoul Bank on made on May 15, 2008; Jun Park was a member of the Seoul Bank's Board of Directors at the time the loan was negotiated. Defendant's signature (a stamp which is sometimes referred to as a "chop") was used by her father to affix her signature, and by his admission, Jun Park affixed it without her knowledge.
5) The Seoul Bank went bankrupt several years later, and the Defendant and her father became debtors with a debt to be collected by
KDIC.
6) KDIC sued to collect the debt ($1.5 million + interest= almost $3 million) in a SK trial court on August 17, 2013.
7) The complaint for the SK lawsuit against Susie and Jun was served by mail on Susie and Jun by KDIC at Jun's office in Seoul (the registered residence for him and his daughter). Susie never saw, nor was informed, about the SK lawsuit.
8) Father Jun sent a letter, upon receipt of the SK complaint, objecting to the complaint and indicating his daughter was not a liable party, that he was the responsible party.
9) Susie Park testifies she was never personally served in South Korea and was totally unaware of the loan until she was served in California with the complaint to enforce the judgment rendered by the South Korean court on June 15, 2015; she was not even in South Korea at the time of the mailed service to her father's office, and was not in SK at the time of the hearing and judgment.
Claims
1) Defendant was never personally served in South Korea; she was not in SK at the time of service, at the time of the hearing, and the judgment (her passport stamps support this). In fact, when the trial took place, she was a licensed doctor residing in the U.S. with her husband and child. Only her father received service and he allegedly intercepted any correspondence to Susie. He kept the loan a secret from daughter.
2) Plaintiff claims that under SK law, service of process on a "co-tenant" is service on all co-tenants, and therefore valid.
3) Defendant wants you to defend her against enforcement of the SK judgment by the LA Superior Court.
4) WHAT IS YOUR "LEGAL" ADVICE?
TO BE ABLE TO REPRESENT THE DEFENDANT WITH RESPECT TO THESE FACTS, PLEASE READ AND ANALYZE THE FOLLOWING (
I. Robert E. Lutz, A Lawyer's Handbook for Enforcing Foreign Judgments in the U.S. and Abroad
II. For background, read excerpt from A. Lowenfeld, International Litigation and Arbitration, 388-404 (2ed., 2002), re: Hilton v. Guyot (USSC, 1895)
III. Copy of the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act (2005)
IV. CONSULT California Code of Civil Procedure §§1713 et seq. (the California adoption of the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act of 2005), especially 1716 and 1717
V. CONSULT California Code of Civil Procedure 415, 416 (service of process provisions).