상법상 이행보조자로서 선박사용인의 법적 지위

Both the article 794, 795 of the Korean Commercial Law and the article 391 of the Civil Law hold the carrier (debtor) responsible for the negligence of ship’s servant employed by the carrier which is considered the negligence of the carrier him/herself. These issues arising from application of the maritime law are based on the concept of ship’s servant employed by the carrier and the independent contractor. Article 794, 795 of the Korean Commercial Law implies the term ‘ship’s servant employed by the carrier’ as a person who performs or undertakes to perform any of the carrier’s responsibilities under a contract of carriage and acts directly, under the carrier’s supervision or control. This notion is narrower than ‘servant’ or ‘agent’ used in article 798 of the Korean Commercial Law in the sense that it excludes not only the sub-carrier who performs the actual carriage but also other persons involved in the performance of the carriage such as stevedores or terminal operators. On the other hand, Korean Commercial Code’ treatment of carrier’s obligations begins by making explicit what the Hague-Visby Rules leaves implicit. Article 795(1) declares, in essence, that the carrier must perform the core obligations under its contract. It employs what has often been described as a ‘reversed burden of proof’, meaning that carrier (typically the defendant) must disprove its fault in order to escape liability (once the claimant has established a prima facie case). This differs from the allocation commonly employed in many jurisdictions to determine fault-based liability under which the plaintiff must prove the defendant’s fault as part of its affirmative case in order to recover. In effect, such a burden-shifting scheme means not exceptional but illustrative regulation of Article 390 under the Korean Civil Code.