The Supreme Court of Korea in Seocho District, southern District [NEWS1]
A verbal will recorded on video at a patient's hospital bedside has been upheld by the Supreme Court, overturning two lower court rulings that found it invalid.
The Supreme Court overturned the appellate ruling and sent the case back in favor of the plaintiff, who had sued a bank for access to approximately 96 million won ($65,321) in deposits left to them under the will, judicial sources said on Monday.
The patient, who died in 2021, had expressed the wish to leave "all assets, including deposits and rights to the return of
jeonse
[lump-sum] lease deposits" to the plaintiff just three days before dying. The statement was recorded on video by a witness, forming the basis of what is legally known as a dictated will — an oral declaration made when other forms of will are not possible.
The bank refused to recognize the will's validity, and both lower courts sided with the bank. The first instance court found it could not be recognized as a general bequest, while the appellate court ruled it invalid for failing to meet the formal legal requirements of a dictated will, finding the situation was not urgent enough to make other forms of will, such as an audio recording, impossible.
The Supreme Court disagreed. The patient had been wearing an oxygen mask and experiencing breathing difficulties at the time, making normal speech and sustained expression of intent difficult.
"There is considerable room to conclude that it was realistically difficult to leave a will by other means such as handwriting or audio recording," the court said. "The fact that only three days remained until the patient's death should also have been taken into account."
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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