When WeChat chat records become "evidence presented in court"
Author: Zhang Hanlin
Source: [People's Court Daily]
At present, WeChat has become an important way for people to communicate with each other, and online communication is becoming more and more convenient. The People's Court of Licheng District, Jinan City, Shandong Province, has sorted out some cases involving WeChat evidence that the court has heard, and reminded the vast number of netizens that it is not enough to use WeChat to fix evidence, but to ensure the integrity of the evidence as much as possible, and to have a factual basis on the premise that there is a legal basis.
Chat history must not be "processed" casually
Friends who have just met face to face, and a WeChat between partners to facilitate communication is normal. In real life, many offline transactions have also been moved online, and chat records have become the core evidence of litigation, so how can such evidence be accepted by the court?
Cheng Xiao and Zheng Qi (the legal representative of a company) have been WeChat friends for many years, and the two have had business dealings. In 2019, Cheng Xiao contacted Zheng Qi through WeChat, saying that he can now provide turning, milling and grinding machine business, and learned that Zheng Qi's company also has this business demand, and hopes to cooperate with him. Based on the previous cooperation foundation, coupled with the fact that he and Cheng Xiao have also been WeChat friends for many years, out of trust, Zheng Qi happily agreed, and the two sides quickly established a business cooperation intention.
According to the requirements, Cheng Xiao's business dealings with a company were carried out through WeChat with Zheng Qi and his company's employees, and the two parties did not sign a contract. A company's relevant drawings and requirements for the production of processing accessories were sent to Cheng Xiao through WeChat. However, Cheng Xiao said that after he processed the parts according to the drawings and requirements of the other party, the company did not pay the processing fee and owed him more than 80,000 yuan.
"Both the plaintiff and the defendant provided a printed chat log with details of the transaction, but strangely, the chat records between the two parties were very different and did not match at all. The defendant said that they did not ask Cheng Xiao to do the follow-up accessories, so they did not need to pay the processing fee. Li Xiaoli, president of the Second Civil Division of the Licheng District Court, said that Cheng Xiao submitted his self-made supply bill and a large number of WeChat chat records as evidence, but after the judge compared the chat records he provided with the WeChat chat records submitted by Zheng Qi, he found that the chat records were incomplete and deleted, and many voices were not converted to text.
After checking, the real conversation was finally restored. It turned out that in order to hide the information that was unfavorable to him, Cheng Xiao deliberately deleted the key information sent by the other party, such as "don't do it" and "cancel the order". In the chat records provided by both parties, it can be seen that the quantity, unit price, quality, performance period, acceptance criteria and other contents of the parts to be processed are not reflected. The defendant said that after receiving the first batch of accessories, it found that the quality of the plaintiff's products could not meet the company's requirements, so after paying for the goods, it made it clear that it would no longer cooperate, and the WeChat chat records submitted by the defendant showed that it had repeatedly sent the plaintiff words such as "don't do it" and "order cancellation" to deny the disputed business, but the plaintiff still continued to produce knowing that the defendant clearly stated that "the order was cancelled".
Therefore, the court found that the plaintiff claimed more than 80,000 yuan from the defendant for processing accessories, but did not provide effective evidence to substantiate it, and rejected its claim.
【Judge's Tips】
Paragraph 1 of Article 67 of the Civil Procedure Law stipulates that the parties have the responsibility to provide evidence for their own claims, that is, "whoever asserts the claim shall present evidence". In the Internet era, business exchanges and cooperation between the parties through WeChat, QQ and other social software are convenient and fast, forming a de facto contractual relationship. After a lawsuit arises, chat records become an important source of evidence, and in this case, only by giving full play to the probative power of chat records can we effectively protect our legitimate interests.
Therefore, when submitting materials, it is necessary to ensure the authenticity and completeness of the submitted chat records, and the chat records related to the case should be restored and submitted as truthfully and completely as possible, and it is important not to delete the chat records by themselves, and not to convert the voice content, and it is not advisable to deliberately avoid unfavorable content.
You may wish to say a few more words about the trading process
As a self-employed person, Jia Gang has been operating a hot water bottle skin business for many years, and he has a cooperative relationship with Zheng Feng and Zheng Zhen for more than 10 years. For more than 10 years, the two sides have never signed a written contract, since there is WeChat, for convenience, the cooperation intentions of both parties are completed in WeChat, Jia Gang according to the chat records Zheng Feng, Zheng Zhen requirements to prepare and ship. There are a large number of transactions between the two parties, but each transaction is not a double payment and there are sometimes arrears. However, based on years of trust, Jia Gang did not urge, but only checked the accounts with the other party regularly and obtained the other party's approval.
Due to the long-term arrears of the payment and the unsuccessful demand, Jia Gang sued Zheng Feng and Zheng Zhen and the company established by the two to the court, demanding the repayment of the arrears of 1.08 million yuan, and submitting IOUs and chat records with the defendants from 2016 to 2022. The chat record lists in detail the number and calculation method of the total amount owed in each stage since 2016, and completely records the reconciliation process and results of the two parties at each point in time, and is supported by multiple transfer vouchers to substantiate.
It can be seen from the WeChat chat records submitted by Jia Gang that the two parties checked the accounts through WeChat, and Jia Gang calculated the total amount of arrears according to the amount of each business payment, plus the amount owed for previous businesses, and then subtracted the amount received, and made a bill of arrears. After taking a photo of each arrears bill, Jia Gang checked with the other party through WeChat, and got a confirmed reply from the other party. As the business between the two parties continues, the amount of arrears has changed. The previous arrears have not been paid off, and there is a new arrears.
Li Xiaoli said that although the plaintiff and the defendant did not sign a written contract, the transaction model was relatively fixed, and the two parties contacted the business through WeChat or telephone, and reconciled accounts through WeChat. The sales contract relationship established between the two parties is the true intention of both parties, and the content does not violate the mandatory provisions of the law, and is a valid contract. The defendant had no objection to the authenticity of the WeChat chat records submitted by the plaintiff, and the WeChat chat records were sufficient to reflect the business dealings between the two parties, the formation process of the IOU and the repayment process of the IOU. The plaintiff's claim was confirmed by WeChat chat records and corresponding transfer records, and the facts were clear and the evidence was sufficient, so the court supported the plaintiff's claim.
【Judge's Tips】
The cooperation period is long, the transaction mode is fixed, and the two parties have formed a routine of WeChat communication and online communication based on mutual trust through the early stage of cooperation, and have frequent business exchanges. Based on this kind of long-term and stable relationship, the parties often have multiple revenues and expenditures involving multiple businesses, and in the long-term business dealings, the payments and arrears involved by the two parties continue to change. In view of this feature, the parties should pay attention to logical coherence in online communication, and the time span should not be too long, and they should seek communication regularly and regularly. In particular, when checking the accounts, it is necessary to say a few more words, make the sentences fluent and obtain accurate answers from the other party.
How is the proof of WeChat emoji?
Li Qiang borrowed money from Qin Feng many times because he didn't have enough money, but he also repaid part of it, but when checking the loan process, Qin Feng sent Li Qiang a loan details through WeChat, but because Li Qiang was busy at the time, he casually replied with an "OK" gesture, indicating that he had received it. Later, Li Qiang checked the loan details with Qin Feng by phone, and clearly pointed out that the details included the part he had repaid.
During the trial, Qin Feng submitted the chat record as evidence, and said that Li Qiang's expression of "OK" gesture was to recognize the loan details he sent to him, and the loan should be repaid according to this detail. Qin Feng believes that the expression of this "OK" gesture means that Li Qiang has approved the loan details, but Li Qiang believes that the expression of the "OK" gesture does not recognize the WeChat content, but only means that he has received it. Because Li Qiang provided the telephone recording records at the time of the loan, the court did not support Qin Feng's claim.
Can WeChat emojis be used as "evidence in court"?"Now the evidence in many cases will more or less involve WeChat chats and transfer records, what the judge has to do is to restore the legal facts and objective facts as much as possible, in the dialogue between the two parties, sometimes an expression may also be used as evidence, but this expression must also be used just right." Li Xiaoli said that in most cases, online emojis usually only appear as auxiliary evidence and cannot play a decisive role. "In the course of litigation, it is necessary to enrich the evidentiary materials as much as possible, and use various transaction documents, transfer vouchers, chat records, call recordings, etc. to corroborate each other, and all kinds of evidentiary materials support each other to form a systematic and complete evidence chain. ”
【Judge's Tips】
In WeChat chat, if you can clearly express it in words, try not to use expressions or voices. Because speech is sometimes mixed with accents or colloquialisms, it may cause ambiguity in the decision. In many WeChat evidences, expressions such as "OK" or fist clenching and smiling also need to be contextualized to determine whether these expressions mean affirmatively.
The judge reminded the majority of netizens to always remember the three "hearts": first, we must have a "sense of vigilance", fix the evidence in a timely manner, and leave traces at any time; second, we must abandon the "fluke heart", deleting and modifying the chat evidence will only cover up our ears and steal the bell, and deceive ourselves; third, we must overcome the "laziness", we must take the initiative to check with the other party on important matters, and do not always feel that "there is reason to go all over the world".
(The names of the parties in the article have been changed)
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