Legal Changes in Compensation Standards for Disability and Death (Beijing as an Example)
Before 2019, in most areas of the Chinese mainland, the standard of compensation for personal injury caused by civil torts such as traffic accidents by natural persons was not uniform, that is, the so-called "same life is not the same price", and compensation was mainly divided into urban and rural standards, which was mainly due to the imbalance between urban and rural development in China, the gap between rich and poor, and the existence of a household registration system. Therefore, in previous years, when consultants asked about the amount of personal injury compensation, the first question the lawyers asked was: "Are you an urban hukou or a rural hukou?" ”
Retrospectively, the specific legal provisions clarifying the amount of personal injury compensation for urban residents and rural residents are based on the 2003 Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Personal Injury Compensation Cases, and for the criteria on which the amount of compensation for injury and death is based, it is necessary to determine the statistical data such as "per capita disposable income of urban residents", "per capita net income of rural residents", "per capita consumption expenditure of urban residents", "per capita annual living expenditure of rural residents", "average wages of employees" and so on These data are mainly collected and published by local statistical bureaus.
Of course, with the integration of urban and rural development, the number of rural residents who come to work in cities and towns is gradually increasing, and rural hukou migrant workers who have personal injuries in cities and towns often receive personal injury compensation according to urban standards, but it is necessary to provide relevant evidence of long-term labor in litigation, so not all similar cases can be compensated accordingly.
Gradually, due to the continuous development of Chinese society and the gradual improvement of the legal system, the Tort Liability Law, which was implemented in 2010, took the lead in unifying the corresponding compensation standards for some cases. Article 17 of the Tort Liability Law stipulates: "Where more than one person dies as a result of the same tortious act, the death compensation may be determined by the same amount." (This article is the same as article 1180 of the Civil Code) Although the cases pointed to are not universal, at least some progress has been made in legal norms.
In May 2019, Article 17 of the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Establishing and Improving the Institutional Mechanism and Policy System for Urban-Rural Integration Development clearly stated: "Reform the personal injury compensation system and unify the compensation standards for urban and rural residents." "At this time, the personal injury compensation system began to make significant changes in the unified compensation standards.
In October 2019, the Supreme People's Court proposed in its reply to article 29 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Personal Injury Compensation Cases > The Supreme People's Court of <" in its reply: "With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the gap between urban and rural areas in many places is getting smaller and smaller, and the differences in compensation standards will naturally become smaller and even convergent. "And with that came the pilots that were being carried out everywhere.
In March 2020, the Beijing Higher People's Court took the lead in launching a pilot project and issued the Notice of the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court on Carrying Out the Pilot Work of Unifying the Compensation Standards for Urban and Rural Residents in Personal Injury Compensation Dispute Cases, requiring that the tortious acts accepted by the municipal courts that occurred after April 1, 2020 (including this day) in the cases of motor vehicle traffic accident liability disputes and traffic accident criminal cases no longer distinguish between urban residents and rural residents, and the standards on which compensation is based are unified as "per capita disposable income of residents in the city". The unified case type of the pilot project is traffic accident cases, and the amount of compensation is close to the average of urban and rural standards.
In 2021, the Civil Code was promulgated, in order to gradually improve and optimize the compensation standards, on September 27, the Beijing Higher People's Court once again issued the "Notice of the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court on Further Promoting the Pilot Work of Unifying Urban and Rural Areas with Personal Injury Compensation Standards", requiring that all civil dispute cases of personal injury compensation and incidental civil litigation cases of traffic accidents accepted by the courts of the whole city do not distinguish between urban residents and rural residents. The standard on which compensation is based is unified as "per capita disposable income of urban residents in the city", the notice expands the type of case to all civil dispute cases of personal injury compensation, and adopts the principle of high is not low, and raises the compensation standard again, and directly notes the specific amount of the compensation standard in the notice, so that the compensation for personal injury can be uniformly maintained at a higher standard.
It is believed that in the near future, the Supreme People's Court and all local courts will gradually and comprehensively unify the high-line standards for personal injury, disability and death compensation, and truly realize "the same life and the same price".
Wang Ting's lawyer
Bachelor of Laws from Chinese Min Public Security University
Chinese min University, majoring in civil and commercial law
China Law & Enterprise Business School emba
Senior Partner of Beijing Changhong Law Firm
Deputy Secretary-General of the Civil Law Research Association of Fengtai District Lawyers Association
He is a member of The Beijing Lawyers Association
He is a member of the All China Lawyers Association
Special counsel of the Beauty Convention Public Welfare Organization of the China Children's Culture and Art Foundation
He has been employed as legal counsel for a number of enterprises and institutions
Lawyer for members of the Medical Shield Legal Services team
He was a guest guest on beijing television's "Counting Beijing" column
The successful cases of litigation have been published in more than ten media outlets, including Workers Daily, China Daily, China News Network, Sina Net, Tencent Net, China Youth Net, China Gong Net, and Beijing Legal Aid.