[Source: Guangdong Provincial High People's Court]
Where a party withdraws the lawsuit during the retrial period and initiates a lawsuit again based on the same facts in dispute, it shall be bound by the principle of constant jurisdiction.
After a civil case is remanded for retrial in the second instance, and the plaintiff withdraws the lawsuit during the retrial period, can the plaintiff choose to file a lawsuit in another court on the same disputed facts?
The plaintiff, Chen, filed a lawsuit with the Pengjiang District People's Court of Jiangmen City regarding a private lending dispute between him and the defendant company and Qu, requesting that the company and Qu be ordered to repay the principal and interest of the loan, and the Pengjiang Court made a civil judgment of first instance. The Jiangmen Intermediate People's Court ruled in the second instance to remand for a new trial on the grounds that there were errors in the first-instance judgment procedures.
During the retrial, Chen applied to withdraw the lawsuit and was allowed by the Pengjiang Court, and filed a lawsuit with the Shunde District People's Court of Foshan City on the same disputed facts. A company and Qu raised a jurisdictional objection on the grounds that this case violated the principle of constant jurisdiction.
The Shunde District People's Court of Foshan City held in the first instance that Chen's household registration was located in Shunde District, Foshan City, and that according to the provisions of Article 18, Paragraph 2 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, the Shunde Court, as the court where the contract was performed, had jurisdiction over the case, and ruled to reject the jurisdictional objections raised by a certain company and Qu. The Foshan Intermediate People's Court held in the second instance that Chen had filed a lawsuit with the Pengjiang Court in the jurisdiction of the defendant's domicile before filing the lawsuit for the same loan facts, and that after the first and second instance procedures such as remanding for retrial, it showed that Chen had made a clear choice of the court with jurisdiction over the dispute. Chen's withdrawal of the lawsuit during the retrial of the dispute involved in the case and the change of the competent court for retrial on the same disputed facts violated the principle of constant jurisdiction, undermined the normal order of civil litigation jurisdiction, and also caused a waste of limited judicial resources, and should not be encouraged and protected. It was then decided to revoke the first-instance ruling and transfer the case to the Pengjiang Court.
The adversarial nature of litigation determines whether the defendant will actively or passively defend against litigation in the litigation process, which will incur litigation costs and even form litigation interests. If the plaintiff is allowed to withdraw the lawsuit during the retrial period and then choose another court for re-litigation, it will inevitably damage the legitimate rights and interests of other parties and cause a waste of judicial resources. In this case, the principle of constant jurisdiction was applied to reasonably regulate the exercise and disposition of the relevant litigation rights of the parties under the circumstance that the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China and relevant judicial interpretations did not clearly stipulate "the issue of whether a party can file a separate lawsuit with another court on the same disputed facts after withdrawing the lawsuit during the retrial of a civil case". The adjudication of this case provides adjudication ideas for similar jurisdictional objection cases, effectively maintains the stability, efficiency and fairness of civil litigation procedures, and is consistent with the legislative purpose of the Civil Procedure Law. The adjudication result of this case is also conducive to guiding the parties to follow the principle of good faith in the litigation.
With a fair heart, pursue the path of justice
Let the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case, first of all, let them feel procedural justice in every case. Compared with substantive justice, procedural justice will have a more direct impact on the parties, and only under the premise of procedural fairness can the parties trust and agree with the adjudication results, as Marx said, procedure is the life form of the legal system. Having been engaged in commercial trials for nearly 10 years, I have never been afraid of major and difficult cases with complex legal relationships, and when I was transferred to the case filing court, I once thought that there were no "bone cases" in procedural cases such as jurisdiction, but this case made me toss and turn and fell into the dilemma of "upholding" and "modifying the judgment".
On the one hand, from the perspective of maintaining the credibility of judicial decisions, the court of second instance needs to be cautious in revising its judgment. On the other hand, after the plaintiff filed a lawsuit with the Pengjiang Court on the dispute in this case, the plaintiff's claim was not fully supported by the court's trial and adjudication, and in the more than a year after the plaintiff's appeal, the case not only consumed a lot of judicial resources after the trial, appraisal and remand for retrial, but also the defendant and other parties invested huge litigation costs in this protracted "battle". Although initiating or withdrawing a lawsuit is a disposition right enjoyed by a party in a lawsuit in accordance with the law, the exercise of this right should be limited and cannot be at the expense of harming or sacrificing the legitimate rights and interests of other parties. Therefore, if the plaintiff files a separate lawsuit and receives procedural support from the jurisdiction, it will inevitably lead to a situation in which the judicial resources of the previous litigation are wasted and the court of the later litigation must reinvest a large amount of judicial resources. From the perspective of conflict and dispute resolution, the circulation of cases between different courts causes unnecessary litigation burden to the parties, and the unstable litigation status is not conducive to the resolution of disputes; From the perspective of judicial effect, the plaintiff, as the plaintiff in the previous lawsuit, has the initiative and full right to choose the competent court, and if the court makes a ruling allowing it to choose another court for relitigation without justifiable reasons, it will inevitably have a negative demonstration effect on other cases and parties.
A fair judicial trial procedure should ensure that the lawful rights and interests of all parties are equally protected. Adjudicators should allow judicial adjudication to promote righteousness, and in the process of value measurement and trade-offs in the context of legal blankness, the guiding role of adjudication in the social value of honesty and goodness should be fully considered. For this reason, the principle of constant jurisdiction was applied in this case to change the judgment, reasonably regulating the exercise of the parties' litigation rights, and guiding the parties to litigate in good faith and cherish judicial resources.
Review: Huang Huichen
Editor: Shao Jinghong, He Xuena
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