Court recognizes same-sex couple's partnership, awards breakup damages 

A Seoul court has ruled that a same-sex couple who built a life together resembling a common-law marriage deserves legal protection, and ordered a third party whose affair ended the relationship to pay 10 million won ($6,570) in damages.

The decision extends a same-sex couple a protection long available to heterosexual common-law partners: the right to claim damages from someone who breaks up the relationship. Korea does not legally recognize same-sex marriage.

The Seoul Central District Court's Civil Division handed down the ruling on Friday, ordering the defendant to pay the plaintiff. The case became public on Wednesday.

The plaintiff and their former partner began dating in 2018 and were together for years. They moved in together in November 2019, when the partner was formally introduced to the plaintiff's parents, and maintained a close relationship with the family. 

In 2022, the partner traveled to France with the plaintiff's parents. In 2023, when the plaintiff's father was in the late stages of cancer and his condition worsened, the partner moved into the plaintiff's family home and lived with the family.

The plaintiff's parents gave the two rings as engagement gifts, and the partner and the plaintiff's family kept a relationship close to that of kin, sharing daily life in a group chat. From 2019, the plaintiff transferred their salary into the partner's account, and the two discussed raising hundreds of millions of won for stock and apartment subscriptions, effectively running shared finances.

The court however found it could not treat the relationship as a common-law marriage under current law.

"There is no evidence that the plaintiff and the former partner held a wedding ceremony or revealed their relationship to acquaintances outside their families," the court said, adding that for a same-sex couple, it was hard to conclude under the present legal system that they had formed a common-law marriage that could be seen, by social convention, as marital life.

Still, the court said the two had gone well beyond a simple romantic relationship.

"From September 2019, when they shared their finances, or at the latest from June 2023, when they lived with the plaintiff's family and received engagement rings from the plaintiff's parents and were recognized as a couple, they shared an emotional, physical and financial relationship with a mutual intent to marry, forming a life partnership similar to a common-law marriage," it said.

The court found the partnership had been broken up by a third party. The former partner began an affair with the defendant in June 2024 and told the plaintiff of the breakup that September, ending the relationship.

The plaintiff was diagnosed with an unspecified anxiety disorder in November 2024. The court said the timing and symptoms indicated the illness arose from the collapse of the relationship caused by the defendant, and it held the defendant liable for the wrongful act.

The court stressed that same-sex couples also have interests that deserve legal protection.

"For a same-sex couple to form, with an intent to marry, a life partnership resembling a legal or common-law marriage is also a right naturally recognized under the right to pursue happiness," it said. "Even for a same-sex couple, the minimum need to protect the interests that come from forming such a partnership cannot be denied."

"Refusing to recognize any liability for a third party who caused a breakup, even where there is no real difference from a heterosexual common-law marriage, could turn away from the right to pursue happiness or the right to equality of a same-sex couple that has formed a partnership comparable to a common-law marriage," the court said.

The court also drew on the reasoning of a 2024 en banc ruling by the Supreme Court, which found that excluding a same-sex partner in a common-law marital relationship from health insurance dependent coverage amounted to discrimination.

At the same time, the court was careful to limit the scope of its decision.

"Whether to recognize a legal or common-law marriage between people of the same sex and whether to recognize a marriage-like life partnership between them and treat it as an interest worth protecting under the law are matters that should be discussed in different contexts," it said.

BY HAN YOUNG-HYE [[email protected]]