If a lineal descendant or sibling who would become an heir dies before the inheritance opens or becomes disqualified, and that person has a lineal descendant or spouse, the lineal descendant or spouse becomes an heir in place of the deceased or disqualified person, taking that person's rank (Articles 1001 and 1003(2) of the Civil Act).

On the nature of inheritance by representation, two views compete: the succession theory, which holds that the representative heir succeeds to the rights of the person represented, and the independent right theory, which holds that the representative heir inherits directly by his or her own right. The independent right theory is the prevailing view.

The heir must have died or become disqualified before the inheritance opened (Articles 1001 and 1003(2) of the Civil Act); renunciation of inheritance is not a ground for representation. If representation is seen as the representative's own right, it should logically be recognized even in cases of renunciation. Case law also recognizes representation when the heir died at the moment the inheritance opened, that is, when the decedent and the presumptive heir died at the same time (Supreme Court Decision 99Da13157, March 9, 2001). The representative heir must be a lineal descendant or spouse of the person represented and must not have lost the qualification to inherit. Thus a spouse of the person represented who remarried before the decedent's death cannot be a representative heir. The person represented must be a lineal descendant or sibling of the decedent.

Even when the decedent has made bequests or gifts, a certain portion of the estate must be reserved for the heirs, and this minimum share reserved for the heirs is called the reserved portion, or forced share. In other words, the forced share system was introduced to resolve the conflict between freedom of testation and statutory inheritance.

The reasons generally given for the forced share system are: (1) inheritance serves to continue support for the surviving family; (2) when children's expected shares are distorted by bequests, this goes against natural human feeling and may destroy the harmony and unity of the family; (3) if the decedent's dispositions make it hard for the heirs to make a living, this burdens society, so the system is also needed from a social security standpoint; (4) since the estate is essentially the tangible and intangible property of the heirs centered on the decedent, the heirs should naturally have a right to acquire part of it; (5) the heirs' expectations regarding the estate should be protected; and (6) a fixed proportion of the statutory share should be set as the forced share to secure contributions to building the estate.

The employment contract grew out of the contract of service in the Civil Act and developed into a concept of labor law, which is part of social law. In other words, the contract of service is a concept of the Civil Act, a body of civil law, while the employment contract is a concept of labor law, a body of social law. As contradictions emerged between civil law and social reality, social law centered on labor law gradually took shape, and as social law developed, labor law established its own field as positive law. As a result, the legal concept of the employment contract also gained a firm footing in positive law. The leading body of law governing employment contracts is the Labor Standards Act, and matters not covered by it are governed by analogous application of the Civil Act or by case law. The employment relationships of workers in special types of employment who are not covered by the Labor Standards Act are governed by separate special acts.

The Minimum Wage Act does not separately define the minimum wage system. In general, a minimum wage system is one in which the state sets a minimum level of wages and legally compels employers to comply with it. However, the minimum wage refers to the lowest level of wages an employer must pay covered workers and does not include the rate or method of wage increases. The current Minimum Wage Act also does not directly define "wages," and Article 2 adopts the concept of wages under Article 2 of the Labor Standards Act.

To add: on April 25, 2024, in case 2020Hun-Ka4 and others, the Constitutional Court struck down Article 1112(4) of the Civil Act, which gave siblings a forced share, and found other parts, such as the lack of grounds to deny a forced share to heirs who gravely wronged the decedent, incompatible with the Constitution. The 2026 minimum wage is 10,320 won per hour. The 'Ministry of Labor' in the paper became the Ministry of Employment and Labor in 2010, and since May 2022 workers can ask the Labor Relations Commission to correct employment discrimination based on sex and workplace sexual harassment. Mandatory prior mediation is also a term used in family litigation, where divorce suits generally go to mediation first.