[Case Details]
Qin was rendering service on Su’s fishing vessel. When he was trying to moor the vessel during a fishing task on the sea, an injury was inflicted on his right foot by the mooring line. He was immediately brought back to the port and treated at a local hospital in Qingdao. When his conditions stabilized, he was transferred to a hospital in Ganyu District, Lianyungang City for further treatment, but he ended up with an authenticated Grade-9 disability, which would exert adverse effects on his future life, labor, and income. When Qin was hospitalized, one of Su’s family members kept him company all the time and paid over 180,000 yuan for the medical expenses. Afterwards, the two parties failed to agree on the due amount of indemnities for Qin’s disability, nursing expenditure, and lost income. Thus, a dispute arose and Qin later filed a lawsuit to Nanjing Maritime Court, requesting the defendant Su to compensate him with a total of 307,830.64 yuan for the miscellaneous losses caused by the accident in the course of his service rendering.
[Verdict]
Nanjing Maritime Court tried the case in a timely manner and ascertained the facts by organizing both parties to present evidence and cross-examine. When it came to fees such as disability compensation and nursing expenditures, the two parties kept arguing whether the injured person was at fault, as well as about his average income and the nursing cost, which made it difficult for the court investigations to proceed, so the presiding judge promptly announced adjournment, summarized the trial, and analyzed the pertinent factual evidence and liabilities. The presiding judge maintained that the sustained accompaniment from defendant Su’s family following Qin’s injury and the 180,000-yuan payment for medical expenses demonstrated that Su has complied with the local ship owner’s norms for handling an injured crew member, and that the rules recognized by the local fishermen, therefore, should be applied to resolving the dispute. Thanks to the trial, especially the judge’s summary, both parties adjusted their expectations into more practical directions, which might well eventually lead to mediation. Given the hostility between the two parties when the trial was concluded, it was inappropriate to conduct mediation immediately. Therefore, the court announced the scheduled time and place for mediation and entrusted it to a special mediator at the one-stop fishery dispute resolution center under Nanjing Maritime Court. The special mediator has lived in the local fishing village for a long time and thus acquires professional knowledge of fishery and rich experience in handling related disputes. The efforts of the special mediator enabled the two parties to reach an agreement: the defendant Su should compensate the plaintiff Qin for his disability, moral damage, follow-up treatment fees, and other legitimate indemnities, totaling 164,000 yuan, to be paid by three installments. The court issued a mediation document confirming this agreement.
[Significance]
In the coastal area of Jiangsu, fishery disputes mostly occurred in traditional fishing ports, villages and townships. They are typical cases concerning people’s livelihood. In most cases, one of the parties usually has an urgent need of aid and support, or is led a life troubled by injury or illness. In view of this, Nanjing Maritime Court attaches great importance to the resolution of fishery-related disputes and stays committed to “resolving disputes through a non-litigation mechanism.” To this end, a one-stop mediation center for fishery disputes has been established in Xiakou Village, Qingkou Town, Ganyu District, Lianyungang City. A special mediator, Qi Honggui, who is based at the center, provides the fishermen with convenient, efficient, and low-cost maritime judicial services. Despite the current availability of relatively sound law theories and comprehensive law-based evidence for fishermen’s disputes over maritime personal injury liabilities, the two parties often have substantial disagreements to the amount of compensation. This, along with the plethora of witnesses and testimonies as well as the insufficiency of key documentary evidence, poses a great and time-consuming challenge to the court in ascertaining the facts, handling the disputes, and ensuring timely relief for the injured.
The presiding judge of this case made a summary of the trial after combing through the evidence presented by both parties, so as to mentally prepare them for the direction of the trial. Then, the judge entrusted the mediation work to an experienced special mediator, who is acquainted with fishery practices and fishermen’s life, to spare much energy and time in the course of fact ascertaining. Giving full play to the special mediator’s role has proved to be quite productive and conducive to timely and efficient settlement of cases concerning people’s livelihood. The settlement of this case through mediation manifests Nanjing Maritime Court’s efforts in upholding people-centered administration of justice, developing its one-stop multi-dispute resolution mechanism and litigation service system with maritime characteristics, and meeting the diverse judicial needs of the people in a better way.
[First-instance Trial, Case Number] (2020) Jiangsu 72 Civil Case No. 231
