Supreme Court Rules Calling Apartment Rep 'Son of a Bitch' in Group Chat Not Insult

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of acquitting a defendant who was indicted for the crime of insult after referring to an apartment's resident representative as a "son of a bitch" in a group chat with residents.

The Supreme Court's Third Division (presiding Justice Lee Heung-goo) overturned the lower court's ruling, which had fined defendant A 300,000 won for insult, and sent the case back to the Northern Seoul District Court.

Defendant A was put on trial for insulting B, the resident representative, in April 2022 inside a group chat room joined by numerous apartment residents.

Upon learning that B had sent text messages describing the head of the women's association as a bad person to apartment building representatives, A became angry and sent a message stating, "This kind of person is fabricating rumors. Also, text messages are circulating saying the women's association head is worse [than a specific person]. The content written by this son of a bitch..."

The first instance court acknowledged guilt and sentenced A to a fine of 300,000 won.

A argued that the expression was merely a minor and abstract term that did not meet the constituent requirements for the crime of insult, but this was not accepted in the second instance either.

However, the Supreme Court reached a decision with the intent of acquittal.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed the legal doctrine that "if a certain expression is rude and impolite enough to make the counterpart unpleasant, or if it is a minor abstract expression or curse word used while expressing negative feelings toward the counterpart, barring special circumstances, it cannot be viewed as an expression that infringes upon external reputation, meaning the crime of insult is not established."

The Supreme Court judged that the message sent by A was also a simple curse word expressing negative feelings toward B, serving merely as an expression that could hurt B's subjective feelings rather than constituting an insult capable of degrading social evaluation.

(File Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.