On May 19, 2021, at around one o'clock in the morning, Liu Liang, a food delivery rider in Beijing, collapsed on the way to deliver food and never woke up. Liu's lawyer believes that Liu Liang's death is related to overwork. Both the platform and the outsourcing company believe that the death of Liu Liang, a delivery driver, has nothing to do with work.
In the early morning of May 19, Liu Liang received a total of 4 orders, and 1 order has been delivered. There are also 3 orders that are shown as canceled. After the first order was delivered, less than 100 meters away, Liu Liang fell to the ground and died. Until that moment, there were still three orders waiting to be delivered. Later, due to overtime, two of the orders were canceled by the customer, and one was canceled by the system because it was not delivered for a long time, and was deducted 12.6 yuan delivery fee and 20 growth points.
The family believes that Liu Liang died suddenly during the delivery process, and the takeaway platform has neither fulfilled its statutory obligation to rescue nor fulfilled its employer's responsibilities, and bears unshirkable responsibility for Liu Liang's death and should be compensated. Subsequently, Liu Liang's family entrusted a lawyer to sue the food delivery platform he worked for before his death to the court.
Liu Liang's parents, children and wife sued the food delivery platform as legal heirs, and after the court accepted the case, a company in Jiangxi Province that signed a cooperation agreement with Liu Liang before his death was also added as a defendant.
During the trial, the operator of the defendant's food delivery platform argued that it only provided information to delivery people and delivery companies. Liu Liang registered an APP before his death and signed a cooperation agreement with a company in Jiangxi. Therefore, Liu Liang's delivery work was in charge of a company in Jiangxi, and he could only sue a company in Jiangxi if he wanted to sue him, while a company in Jiangxi argued that they had agreed in an agreement with an APP rider that a company in Jiangxi and Liu Liang were in a cooperative relationship or a flexible employment relationship, and the labor contract law did not apply, but only the civil law and the contract law.
The court held that a company in Jiangxi, as the employer, should actively perform the main responsibilities of the employer, improve the working conditions, and reasonably determine the rights and obligations of both parties.
Regarding the liability of the takeaway platform, the court held that since the operator of the takeaway platform did not have a labor-employment relationship with Liu Liang, it did not need to bear the employer's liability. But this is not a reason for internet platforms to stay out of the matter and not be held responsible.
The judge held that Liu Liang, as an adult, should have a full understanding and duty of care for the number of orders and his own physical condition, and he was also at fault for his own death. After the trial, the court made a first-instance judgment in court, the defendant Jiangxi company, that is, a labor outsourcing company, compensated the family of the deceased Liu Liang more than 1,092,500 yuan, and the operator of the defendant's takeaway platform, the takeaway platform, compensated the five plaintiffs more than 483,500 yuan.
At the same time, the court of first instance also issued a judicial recommendation to the operator of the food delivery platform, making suggestions on the problems existing in the protection of the labor rights and interests of riders on the platform.
After the first-instance verdict was announced, all three parties were dissatisfied with the verdict and appealed to the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court.
At the trial scene, the labor outsourcing company asserted that there was a one-click call for help function on the APP, and the rider could ask for help if he encountered an accident, so they did not recognize the fault of the labor outsourcing company found in the first-instance judgment.
In the second-instance trial, the takeaway platform provided new evidence to the court, wanting to prove that Liu Liang's sudden death was a pathological death related to his own disease.
One side insisted that its own illness caused the death, while the other side emphasized that the platform's algorithm rules were the root cause of the sudden death of food delivery rider Liu Liang.
The takeaway platform emphasizes that it is necessary to strictly distinguish the boundary between online and offline, and reasonably divide the rights and obligations of the platform and its partners. Therefore, the platform believes that in the case of Liu Liang's sudden death in the middle of the night food delivery, they are not obliged to report abnormal information to the outsourcing company. With regard to the issue in dispute between the parties, after a comprehensive review, the court of second instance held that the facts ascertained in the first instance were clear and that the application of law was not improper.
In the case of clarification of the case, the judge organized the parties to conduct several mediations. In July 2023, the three parties reached a settlement agreement and filed a withdrawal with the court.
Gao Gui, a third-level senior judge of the First Civil Trial Division of the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court, said:
The Internet platform, as the main operator of the network, as the biggest beneficiary, and as the rule-maker, grasps the delivery of riders in real time, so it is the most clear about the delivery of orders. Therefore, the platform should have the obligation to follow up and prompt abnormal orders, and effectively assume the responsibility of the Internet platform.
[Source: Jingfa Network Affairs]