Source: Yuyao Municipal People's Court
Spend a lot of money on further training and doctoral studies
In September 2008, Lin successfully joined Yuyao A Hospital after layers of selection and became an emergency doctor in the hospital, and the two sides signed an employment contract.
On June 2, 2011, Hospital A selected Lin to study at the American Research Institute for two years and signed a "Letter of Agreement". The two parties agreed that Lin must return to the hospital on time after the end of his further studies and work in the hospital for more than ten years; if he returns to the hospital for less than ten years, the subsidy shall be refunded proportionally according to the actual working years, and Lin must pay the hospital 10,000 yuan / year of technical investment compensation fee. After that, Lin went to the United States as scheduled, during which he received a total of 329,000 yuan in training fees, travel expenses, wages, etc. from the hospital.
In August 2013, Lin ended his further studies and returned to Hospital A to serve.
After working for more than two years, Lin applied to the hospital to study for a full-time doctoral degree in emergency medicine, and the hospital was very supportive of Lin's application and cooperated with Lin to handle the procedures for terminating the employment relationship. To this end, the two sides also signed the "Two-way Agreement for Doctoral Students", which stipulates that during the period of study, although Lin terminated the employment relationship with the hospital, the hospital still gave a certain amount of financial subsidies; at the same time, it was agreed that Dr. Lin must fulfill his commitment to return to the hospital after graduation, and if he violates this commitment, Lin must give the hospital 2 times the compensation according to the subsidy standard during the doctoral study. Dr. Lin must serve in the hospital for not less than ten years after graduation, and if the service period is insufficient, the compensation shall be paid proportionally according to the actual working years.
Since September 2015, Lin went to a university to study, during which the hospital paid a total of 244,000 yuan in economic subsidies to Lin according to the agreement.
"Gilded" returned to destroy the contract to jump ship
In March 2019, Lin was about to return to school, but Hospital A received a written notice from Lin informing him that he would be employed in a hospital in Zhejiang. The hospital thought that it had invested a lot in cultivating Lin Mou, but it did not expect such a result.
In April 2021, Hospital A sued Lin to the Yuyao Court to pursue his liability for breach of contract, demanding that he compensate for losses and liquidated damages totaling RMB870,000.
In this regard, the defendant Lin argued that during the period of further study in the United States, the plaintiff paid the defendant living expenses, including transportation costs such as round-trip air tickets, not training fees, and the ten-year service period stipulated in the agreement did not meet the law, and the so-called compensation fee for technical investment funds had no basis; during the doctoral study, the defendant was still working at the plaintiff's office, participating in a large number of thesis writing, project research, key laboratory results, etc., making great contributions to the plaintiff.
Court: Violated the principle of good faith and paid more than 800,000 yuan
During the trial, the two sides engaged in a heated debate on whether the defendant should pay the plaintiff's compensation as agreed and the amount of compensation paid.
After trial, the court held that the two agreements signed by the plaintiff and the defendant were the true intentions of both parties, so the ten-year service period stipulated in the two agreements did not violate the mandatory provisions of the law, and the defendants should perform according to the contract.
★ About the "Letter of Agreement" signed before the first study in the United States. The plaintiff claimed a compensation fee of 10,000 yuan / year for technology investment funds, which was equivalent to liquidated damages. According to the Provisions of the Labor Contract Law, if an employee violates the service period agreement, he shall pay liquidated damages to the employer in accordance with the agreement. The amount of liquidated damages shall not exceed the training fee provided by the employer, so the compensation fee of 10,000 yuan / year for technical investment funds is reasonable and legal. According to the defendant's actual service period of 26 months, the defendant shall return 336,000 yuan such as the plaintiff's training fees and compensation fees for technical investment funds.
★ About the Two-way Agreement for Doctoral Students. The plaintiff had paid the defendant an economic subsidy of 244,000 yuan as agreed, but the defendant had never worked with the plaintiff after graduation, so the defendant should refund the economic subsidy of 244,000 yuan.
At the same time, the defendant failed to return to work with the plaintiff as agreed, which was obviously a breach of contract, and the additional double compensation agreed in the agreement was actually the liquidated damages required by the plaintiff to be paid by the defendant. In this regard, taking into account the circumstances and fault of the defendant's breach of contract, and based on the principle of fairness and good faith, the court found that the defendant should compensate the plaintiff in full for 244,000 yuan.
In summary, the court found that the defendant should return the plaintiff's training fees and economic subsidies, and pay a total of 824,000 yuan in compensation fees and compensation for technology investment funds. Lin was not satisfied with the judgment and appealed. Recently, the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court upheld the original judgment in the second instance. (All parties in the article are pseudonyms)
Typical
Talent is the foundation of the survival and development of the hospital, the driving force and root cause of participating in the competition of the medical market, and it is of decisive significance. Nowadays, enterprises and institutions pay more and more attention to talent training, among them, the selection of outstanding talents for training and the appointment of service period is one of the common ways of talent training, during the training period, the unit will spend a lot of time and economic costs. In practice, there are often cases of refusing to return to the original unit after completing their studies, and not complying with the requirements of the corresponding service period, resulting in the waste of the original unit's efforts and a serious loss of talent.
According to Article 6 of the Contract Law of the People's Republic of China, the exercise of power and performance of obligations by the parties shall follow the principle of good faith; at the same time, the report of the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China also established good faith as the value criterion of the socialist core values on the individual level of citizens. It can be seen that the principle of good faith is the value criterion of every civil subject.
In this case, with the support and financial support of the plaintiff, the defendant conducted high-quality education, and should have loved his post and devoted himself to his work, but failed to comply with the basic requirements of good faith, signed a labor contract with other units without authorization, and refused to return to the original unit to perform the service period. In this case, the Yuyao court fully supported the amount of liquidated damages and made a negative evaluation of the defendant's behavior, which not only warned the employees in the enterprise and institution who had similar situations to the defendant, but also carried forward the socialist core values of integrity and dedication.
Links to laws
Article 22 of the Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China: Where an employer provides a worker with special training fees and provides him with professional and technical training, he may conclude an agreement with the worker to stipulate the service period.
If the employee violates the service period agreement, he shall pay liquidated damages to the employer in accordance with the agreement. The amount of liquidated damages shall not exceed the training fees provided by the employer. The liquidated damages required by the employer to be paid by the employee shall not exceed the training costs that should be apportioned for the unfulfilled part of the service period.
Where an employer and an employee agree on a period of service, it shall not affect the increase in the employee's labor remuneration during the service period in accordance with the normal wage adjustment mechanism.
Article 16 of the Implementing Regulations of the Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China: The training expenses stipulated in the second paragraph of Article 22 of the Labor Contract Law include the training fees with certificates paid by the employer for the purpose of conducting professional and technical training for the employee, the travel expenses during the training period, and other direct expenses incurred by the employee for the purpose of training.