Viewpoint... The dispute between the victim of a traffic accident and the jurisdiction of the court where the insurance company is located-and an analysis of the major breakthrough in the successful revision of the jurisdiction appeal case.

Published:

2021-11-23

In a motor vehicle traffic accident liability dispute case represented by the author, the higher court revoked the result of the inadmissibility ruling made by the basic court, and instructed the court of first instance to file a lawsuit against the relatives of the deceased in the court where the insurer is located. This final result marks a breakthrough in the jurisdiction of traffic accident cases, which is generally accepted by the court of the place where the traffic accident occurred. This article interprets the law by case, although it is a common traffic accident that causes death, but it is of great significance and extraordinary in the jurisdiction of the court, in order to give readers some enlightenment. A victim files a lawsuit in the court where the insurer is located. One day last winter, when A was driving his own private car along the South Second Ring Road in Shizhong District of Jinan City, he collided with B who was riding an electric bicycle across the road, resulting in B's death. The Shizhong District Brigade of the Traffic Police Detachment of the Jinan Public Security Bureau determined in accordance with the law that both the car driver A and the deceased B were equally responsible for the accident. After investigation, C property insurance company Jinan central branch company underwrites the car's strong insurance and commercial insurance under the third party liability insurance. A and the heir of the deceased B signed a "mediation agreement", agreed that the traffic accident in the car's strong insurance and commercial insurance under the three insurance all belong to Ding enjoy and claim. In order to claim the insurance money, Ding filed a lawsuit with the District Court where the insurer is located. 2 The court in the place where the insurer is located ruled that it will not be accepted. A district court orally informed the relatives of the deceased to go to the court where the accident occurred. The relatives of the deceased did not agree for some reason and insisted on prosecuting in Area A. The A District Court then ruled inadmissible. The reasons for the decision are as follows: "After review, this court believes that this case is a motor vehicle traffic accident liability dispute, and the jurisdiction court should be determined by the place of infringement or the defendant's domicile. The place of infringement in this case is the downtown district of Jinan city, and the place of residence of the car driver, I .e. the infringer a, is also the downtown district of Jinan city. although the place of residence of the accused c property insurance company Jinan central branch is Jinan district a, it is not the actual infringer. therefore, there is no legal basis for establishing the jurisdiction court based on the place of residence of the accused c property insurance company Jinan central branch. According to Article 119 of the Civil Procedure Law: "The prosecution must meet the following conditions:... the (IV) falls within the scope of the court's acceptance of civil litigation and the jurisdiction of the court of appeal". Paragraph 4 of Article 124: "For cases that do not fall under the jurisdiction of this court, the (IV) shall inform the plaintiff to bring a suit in a court with jurisdiction". Article 211 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law: "For cases where this court has no jurisdiction, the plaintiff shall be informed to file a lawsuit with a court with jurisdiction; if the plaintiff insists on filing a lawsuit, it shall be ruled not to accept it; if it is found that this court has no jurisdiction after filing a case, the case shall be transferred to a court with jurisdiction". Accordingly, the Court rejected the case. ......, the ruling is as follows: the prosecution of Ding, this court will not accept." Three victims appeal against the law The prosecutor, Ding, refused to accept the ruling of the first instance and appealed to the Jinan Intermediate Court within the time limit for appeal. The appeal request is to revoke the ruling of the first instance and instruct the court of first instance to accept the case. The grounds of appeal are as follows: The 1.'s original ruling that the court of first instance had no jurisdiction over the case was an error of fact. Reason: 1. The logic of the original ruling to determine the jurisdiction of the court is inconsistent and illegal, and the second instance should be corrected. The court of first instance held that "this case is a dispute over liability for motor vehicle traffic accidents, and the jurisdiction court should be determined by the place of infringement or the domicile of the defendant." Obviously, the competent court can be the court of the place of infringement or the court of the defendant's domicile. The appellant has the right to choose these two types of courts according to law. The appellant now chooses the court of the defendant's domicile as the court of appeal, which is in accordance with the law. Article 21, paragraph 3, of the "Civil Procedure Law" stipulates: "If several defendants in the same lawsuit have their domicile and habitual residence in the jurisdiction of two or more people's courts, each court has jurisdiction." Article 35 of this Law provides that: "In an action in which two or more courts have jurisdiction, the plaintiff may sue in one of the courts; ......" Accordingly, the court of the place of domicile of any one of the defendants may be the court of jurisdiction. The jurisdiction conferred on the courts by the Act is not subject to any preconditions. There are two defendants in this case. The appellant chose the court (District A Court) where Jinan Central Branch of C Property Insurance Company is located as the jurisdiction court, which is in full compliance with the law. The original trial ruled that the jurisdiction of the court of appeal was judged on the basis of whether the defendants were infringers. This practice is unfounded and should be corrected. 2. This case is not a purely tort dispute and should not be governed only by tort considerations. The original ruling forced the plaintiff to choose the court of the place of infringement or the court of the place of domicile of the infringer as the court of jurisdiction, which violated the law. The original ruling depriving the plaintiff of the statutory right of action (the choice of the competent court) should be corrected. As we all know, in traffic accident cases, the victim and the driver who caused the accident have a tort relationship, and the insurance company and the victim (the third party) have an insurance contract relationship. According to the traditional theory of tort compensation law, the victim should only sue the infringer such as the driver and the owner of the accident and claim the liability for tort compensation. After the infringer has paid the compensation, the insured (infringer) should apply to the insurer for compensation, instead of the victim directly listing the insurance company that underwrote the car in the infringement case as the co-defendant. These are two different legal relationships. The "Road Traffic Safety Law" implemented on May 1, 2004 broke through the shackles of the above-mentioned traditional tort compensation legal system, and pioneered a new type of accident compensation legal system to list the infringer and the insurer as co-defendants. The Tort Liability Act reconfirms this legal system. Based on the understanding of the aforementioned traditional tort compensation jurisprudence, for a long time after the implementation of the Road Traffic Safety Law, many courts did not follow the provisions of the Traffic Safety Law and the Tort Liability Law when accepting traffic accident cases. The new compensation system is implemented (the infringer and the insurer are listed as co-defendants), but still requires the plaintiff to only list the infringer as the defendant and prohibit the insurer as the co-defendant. It was not until December 21, 2012 that the Supreme Court's Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Road Traffic Accident Damage Compensation Cases came into effect that the practice of courts across the country was unified: victims were allowed to sue infringers and insurance companies at the same time, and victims were required The insurance company that underwrites compulsory traffic insurance and commercial triple insurance is listed as a co-defendant. This practice is still used today. It can be seen from the above that the court of first instance has jurisdiction over the case, not without jurisdiction. From the perspective of the jurisdictional content stipulated in the Civil Procedure Law, if you choose the court of the defendant's domicile to sue, the law does not require the court of the infringer's domicile to be the court of the infringer's domicile. The court of first instance forced the appellant to sue either in accordance with the court of the place of infringement or in accordance with the court of the place of domicile of the infringer among the co-defendants, which in essence illegally deprived the appellant of the right to choose a court of jurisdiction in accordance with the law. This practice has no basis in the law and the ruling of the original trial should be corrected. 3. The ruling of the original trial deprived the appellant of part of his litigation rights, which constitutes an offence and should be corrected. The original ruling of the 2. was wrong in applying the law. (omitted) To sum up, the original ruling found that the facts were wrong and the applicable law was wrong, which should be corrected. In order to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the appellant, the court of second instance is requested to correct the error according to law. 4. The Court of Final Appeal revoked the ruling of the first instance and ordered the court of first instance to file a case for acceptance. After the trial, the Jinan Intermediate Court made a final ruling: revoke the first-instance ruling and order the first-instance court to accept the case. The reasons for the revision by the court of second instance are as follows: "... the appellant listed the insurer as a defendant in accordance with the law, in accordance with the provisions of the above judicial interpretation. The third paragraph of Article 21 of the "Civil Procedure Law" stipulates: "If several defendants in the same lawsuit have their domicile and habitual residence in the jurisdiction of two or more people's courts, each people's court has jurisdiction." Article 35 stipulates: "Where two or more people's courts have jurisdiction over a lawsuit, the plaintiff may bring a suit in one of the people's courts; ......" The appellant first chooses to bring a suit in the court of original trial in the place where the insurer is domicile, and the court of original trial has jurisdiction over the case. The court of first instance shall not accept the case improperly and shall correct it. … ruled as follows: The 1. revoked the civil ruling of Jinan District A People's Court (2021) Lu 0102 Minchu XXXX; 2., the case ordered Jinan A District People's Court to accept the case. This decision shall be final." V. Comments on Case-handling Lawyers Defendants in motor vehicle traffic accident liability disputes usually include motor vehicle drivers, motor vehicle owners, and property insurance companies that underwrite motor vehicles that cause accidents. Jurisdictional courts usually include: the court of the place where the accident occurred, the court of the motor vehicle driver's domicile, the court of the motor vehicle owner's domicile, etc. The difference in litigation costs, the different concepts of different courts, the difference in compensation treatment, especially the ability to file a lawsuit in the pilot provinces authorized by the Supreme People's Court to implement a unified compensation standard for the nature of urban and rural household registration, and many other factors have resulted in the same case in different courts. There will be different judgments (the amount of compensation is huge). Therefore, many victims attach great importance to the choice of the jurisdiction court. In many cases, it is more beneficial for the victim to file a lawsuit in the court where the insurer is located. At this time, the victim hopes to file a lawsuit in the court where the insurer is located. We temporarily summarize the above situation as demand-side demand, and the following objective situation can be summarized as supply-side supply: There are nearly 90 property insurance companies in my country, and the provincial branches and head offices of these companies are mostly located in provincial capital cities, Financial and insurance industry clusters in the capitals of autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, that is, they are highly concentrated in a certain 1. and two districts in the city. If the plaintiff takes the court of the insurer's domicile as the jurisdiction court, it will make it difficult for the courts in the 1. districts where property insurance companies in provincial capitals, autonomous regional capitals and municipalities directly under the Central Government gather to deal with an astonishing number of traffic accident cases. In order to deal with and alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand, the above-mentioned grass-roots courts have formed an effective practice over the years. If the plaintiff determines the court of jurisdiction according to the domicile of the insurer, the oral reply will not be accepted and the plaintiff will be informed that he should sue in the court where the traffic accident occurred. This has led to a large number of traffic accident victims who cannot choose to sue in the insurer's domicile court according to their own needs. For decades, the heirs of countless deaths have been unable to shake this judicial reality. When handling the appeal of jurisdiction dispute in this motor vehicle traffic accident liability dispute case, lawyer sun hanchuan overcame the difficulties, solved the above-mentioned problems, and cleared a major obstacle for such victims on the demand side in the future.

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