Can I refuse to pay for my labor? The law says: "No"

"In a labor service contract, the timely and full payment of labor remuneration to the labor service provider is an obligation that the labor service provider should earnestly perform." Judge Wang Pingfan of the Shuangfeng Court solemnly wrote this passage in the civil judgment of the plaintiff Sun X v. defendant Dai X and Peng X in the labor contract dispute.

A quick look at the facts of the case

Dai and Peng are husband and wife, and after the new house prepared by the two is contracted to Sun in the form of contractors without materials, Sun organizes construction personnel and prepares construction equipment such as frames and formworks for construction. On November 1, 2014, the two parties settled the project payment, the defendant in this case, Peng X, issued an IOU to the plaintiff in this case, Sun X, "Owes Sun X tens of thousands of yuan (40,000 yuan) for building a house, and the monthly interest is 400 yuan (400 yuan)", and on May 27, 2016, after the defendant in this case, Dai X, paid 10,000 yuan to the plaintiff Sun X, refused to pay the remaining project payment on the grounds of water leakage in the newly built house and water leakage in the bathroom. On May 11, 2020, Sun filed this case with the Shuangfeng Court.

First instance judgment

The Twin Peaks Court held that the agreement that the defendants Dai and Peng, as the labor service providers, could not pay the labor remuneration of the labor service provider Sun in full, and the agreement to issue an IOU to Sun and pay interest at a monthly interest rate of 10% (calculated from the monthly interest of 40,000 principal and 400 yuan) was an expression of the true intention of both parties and was legal and valid. Although the defendants did not agree on the repayment date on the IOU, they should immediately pay off when the plaintiff Sun urged them. This court shall support plaintiff Sun's claim that the defendants repay the labor remuneration of 40,000 yuan and interest. The court did not support the defendants Dai and Peng's refusal to pay labor remuneration on the grounds that the house was leaking or seeping water, and lacked legal basis.

On June 22, 2020, the Shuangfeng Court rendered the following judgment: Defendants Dai and Peng repaid plaintiff Sun's labor remuneration arrears and interest totaling RMB56,017.6.

Second-instance judgment

After the first-instance judgment, Dai and Peng were not satisfied with the judgment and appealed to the Loudi Intermediate People's Court on the grounds that "the characterization of the case was wrong and the facts were not clear".

The Loudi Intermediate People's Court held that Article 2 of the Supreme People's Court's Notice on the Implementation of the Provisions on the Causes of Action in Civil Cases stipulates that "the cause of action in civil cases shall be determined on the basis of the nature of the civil legal relationship claimed by the parties." "In this case, the two parties actually formed a labor contract relationship, and it was not improper for Sun to file this case lawsuit with the Shuangfeng Court on the grounds of a labor contract dispute. The appellants, Dai X and Peng X, claimed that the cause of action in this case should be a dispute over the rural housing construction contract, and the appeal claim could not be established, and the court did not support it.

In addition, the appellants Dai and Peng claimed that there was a quality problem in the house in the case undertaken by Sun X, and the project payment should be deducted, but did not provide sufficient evidence to prove that the quality problem of the house was indeed caused by the labor services provided by Sun X, and the possibility of water leakage caused by the housing construction materials could not be ruled out, and the judge in charge of the first instance clearly informed that whether there was a quality problem in the house involved in the case and the labor contract relationship at trial in this case were not the same legal relationship, if there was a quality problem in the house involved, the appellant Dai X and Peng X could sue in a separate case. Assert in accordance with the law. To this end, the Loudi Intermediate People's Court ruled: the appeal was rejected and the original judgment was upheld.

【Source: Loudi Intermediate Court_Case】

Copyright belongs to the original author, a tribute to the original