Simgang Lee Won-hwan, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at Yonsei University who helped make a ruling in favor of citizens as a result of an evaluation that pointed out Seoul City's responsibility in Korea's first public interest lawsuit, passed away on February 19 this year, his student, professor emeritus Cho Won-cheol of Yonsei University, and others reported on the 5th. Age 96.
The deceased, who was born in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province on November 20, 1929, completed his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the Department of Civil Engineering at Seoul National University. While he was a civil engineering teacher at Gyeonggi Technical High School (now Seoul National University of Science and Technology), he established Korea's first mathematical laboratory in December 1956. After working as an assistant professor at Pusan National University, he became a lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at Yonsei University. He served as the director of the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Graduate School of Industrial Science at Yonsei University, the president of the Korean Society of Hydrology (currently the Korean Society of Water Resources), the first president of the Korean Association of Water Academic Societies, and the president of the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, and was a life member of the Korea Academy of Science and Technology.
His student, Professor Cho, cited the creation of the 'IDF curve formula' as the deceased's academic achievement. This is a formula that calculates the appropriate strength of sewers etc. based on hourly rainfall data. Professor Cho explained, "We created the 'Seoul City Sewer Pipe Design Standard' based on the probability rainfall intensity formula created by the deceased. This was the result of collecting hourly rainfall data by carrying a large blueprint on a truck (when there were no copiers yet) to copy the magnetic rainfall records kept at each weather observatory." He has written numerous books on river engineering, hydroelectric power engineering, and hydrology.
In the Mangwon-dong flood lawsuit, the court (14th Division of the Seoul Civil District Court) received a request on April 25, 1985, and submitted the appraisal results on July 20 of the same year. The presiding judge in the first trial was Chief Judge Shin Myeong-gyun, but Chief Judge Kim Seong-man was the presiding judge until the evaluation results were submitted.
The background of the lawsuit was that the sluice gate of the Mangwon Reservoir near 450 Mangwon-dong collapsed due to heavy rain between August 31 and September 2, 1984, and the river water flowed backwards and swept through the areas of Mangwon-dong, Seongsan 1-dong, Seogyo-dong, Donggyo-dong, Hapjeong-dong, and Yeonnam-dong. Over 5,000 households were flooded and over 20,000 residents were evacuated. The late lawyer Cho Young-rae (1947-1990) filed a lawsuit against the city of Seoul and the water gate construction company (Hyundai Engineering & Construction), with 22 residents as plaintiffs.
While the Seoul Metropolitan Government claimed that "the Mangwon-dong flood was an unpredictable natural disaster," Attorney Cho countered, "The reason the reservoir was damaged even though the water level was lower than the 1972 Mangwon-dong flood was because there were defects in the installation and preservation of the water gate." The court accepted the plaintiff's request and requested an evaluation of the deceased.
The issue for expert appraisal was whether the water gate was installed properly. When the city of Seoul built Mangwon Reservoir around 1973 after the 1972 flood, it normally discharged the water from the reservoir into the Han River through a drainage pipe. When the water level of the Han River rose due to a flood, etc., it closed the flood gate installed at the end of the drainage pipe and discharged the water from the reservoir into the Han River through a forced discharge pipe with five pumps. The problem is that in 1979, the location of the sluice gate and sluice box was moved to the reservoir due to 'inconvenience to the management's passage', making it smaller and weaker than before. Sandy soil was also used for compaction instead of clay. At that time, Professor Cho went into the Mangwon Reservoir with his graduate students under the deceased's instructions, collected soil, and was in charge of analyzing the sample to determine whether it was clay or sandy soil.
On July 20, 1985, the deceased submitted an evaluation result to the court stating, "During the 1979 floodgate relocation, the sluice box was designed too small, resulting in an incomplete facility," and the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff based on this on August 26, 1987. Accepting Hyundai Engineering & Construction's claim that "the construction was done according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government's design," and only acknowledging the Seoul Metropolitan Government's responsibility, it was consistent with the deceased's evaluation results.
The city of Seoul tried to placate the deceased before the results of the first trial were released. Former investigator Kwon Byeong-deok of the Special Investigation Committee on Social Disasters wrote in Monthly JoongAng this year ('Collapsed Floodgates, Opening the Door to Class Action Lawsuits'), "Seoul City separately requested Professor Lee to evaluate the cause of the accident, including questions favorable to Seoul City, by spending 64 million won in service fees. As of 1985, the price of a 31-pyeong Eunma Apartment in Daechi-dong was 40 million won, so you can guess the size of the amount." “Even Professor Lee Won-hwan, who had high expectations, came to the conclusion that it was poor design and poor construction, embarrassing the city of Seoul,” he said. Professor Cho said, “It is true that the city of Seoul tried to appease him several times, but he did not respond. If he had just stooped a little, he would have made a lot of money, but he was very stubborn.” When the results of the deceased's evaluation came out unfavorable, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched a delay operation by requesting additional evaluation from the Korean Society of Civil Engineers. While the court accepted all of the deceased's evaluation results, it rejected some of the evaluations by the Korean Society of Civil Engineers and others.
After winning the first trial, attorney Cho Young-rae filed an additional lawsuit for 2,390 households, and received a final ruling in their favor from the Supreme Court in 1990. Of the 45 billion won claim, 5.32 billion won was recognized. Korea's first public interest lawsuit, first class action lawsuit, and first planned lawsuit ended in a landslide victory for the citizens. Attorney Cho passed away from lung cancer shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, but this case led to the expansion of the activities of human rights lawyers, which were limited to current affairs, to class action lawsuits and public interest litigation.
Professor Cho speculated that the reason the court at the time requested the deceased to be evaluated was “because he was the scholar who knew the most about the field.” "(1985) Before Chungju Dam was completed, I walked from Dodamsambong (Danyang) to Chungju Dam and took pictures of the riverbed. I pitched a tent on the riverbed and slept. I planned to compare how it changed after the dam was built," he said. "He was a single-minded scholar with strong principles. He had no political affiliation. He had a very good memory for numbers. (At the time of the lawsuit in 1985) The water in the reservoir was shit water. I went into it and scooped up dirt. He also said, “If the students hesitated even though you had to come, you went in first.” It is said that he personally attended the disciples' meeting ('Subakhoe') until 2023.
