Oct 17 2008
looks like the sanlu lawsuits are still going nowhere
The International Herald Tribune (tagline: the New York Times Global Edition), published an article reiterating some not-so-surprising news, entitled “ Lawsuits in China’s milk scandal unlikely to be settled in court“. ( h/t to CDT)
Of course, what was reported was nothing new to the readers of this blog:
The parents filed a lawsuit Monday in the arid northwest province of Gansu where the family lives, to try to wrest more than $152,000 in compensation from Sanlu Group, the maker of the baby formula that Kaixuan had been drinking.
It seemed like a clear-cut liability case - since last month, Sanlu has been at the center of China’s biggest contaminated food crisis in years. But as in two other courts now dealing with such lawsuits, the judge has so far declined to hear the case.
Chinese officials routinely favor producers over consumers and rarely hold companies or their shareholders to account even in major cases of malfeasance. Product liability lawsuits remain difficult to file and harder still to win, especially if the company involved has state ownership or close connections to officials who also oversee the courts.
But Yi and his wife are among only a handful of Chinese who have filed a lawsuit against a dairy company. The plaintiffs are all individual families and lawyers say there is almost zero chance that any judge would consider a class-action lawsuit since those are highly discouraged in China.
“This is a product liability case that in a Western country would turn into a class-action lawsuit,” Zhang continued. “But I think social stability is the government’s main concern. They don’t want to see so many people getting involved in one lawsuit - this might threaten social stability.”
So, that’s 3 lawsuits against Sanlu that have been reported. And 3 lawsuits where the judge has declined to hear the case. How convenient. I am still not sure how a judge can elect to not hear a case like this for what is obviously political reasons. I am not saying that American judges don’t get political. (some very much do) But on the whole, at least they don’t look like puppets for the government or government-based policies… That being said, I thought once was normal, twice okay… but 3 dismissals already. Either that Chinese judge is really scared of the government or just plain unwilling to go with Chinese public sentiment. I’d say the former.
Government officials have told parents and lawyers in the milk cases that their complaints can be resolved through out-of-court compensation payments.
Local governments in Sichuan Province employed the same strategy with grieving parents whose children died in school collapses during the May 12 earthquake. Over the summer, the governments gave compensation to the parents if they signed papers agreeing to drop demands for investigations into shoddy school construction. Most of the parents accepted the money.
As with the school collapses, the milk scandal involves a web of complicity tying company executives to government officials, which means any lawsuit is politically sensitive. To prevent a public airing of grievances, the government will pressure complainants to sign individual compensation agreements, said Teng Biao, a lawyer in Beijing who is collecting material for a possible class-action lawsuit.
“Traditionally in China, politics is always higher than the law,” he said.
Sad indeed. I look forward to the day when the rule of law takes over. I don’t want to reiterate my point that I think the government’s handling of the crisis ends up encouraging bad behavior, so I will just quote from my prior post:
I don’t think the Chinese government’s method of compensation is all that fair in terms of pain and suffering (and time and nuisance value) by just paying all treatment fees. But it is great in terms of promoting social stability and trying to quell the unrest. What’s the downside? Ultimately, such an action likely will encourage would-be offenders to continue to market garbage products. And of course, true justice isn’t really served. The government ends up shielding the companies at the cost of damaged parties.
Maybe the fourth time will be the charm…
You don’t understand China. You’re just putting what you know about US law onto the Chinese system and it doesn’t work. Typical square peg, round hole scenario. As it stands, the Government is arranging compensation directly, it is considered not necessary to go through the legal system to obtain it.
I beg to differ. It’s not just the U.S. law system that uses the policies I discuss. And if I remember correctly, Chinese law (as well as Taiwanese law) draws a lot upon U.S. law as a source of inspiration. (and other sources too such as Germany and Japan) I think even the Chinese government understands that its legal system needs to get better. I view my commentary as providing what I think is useful policy correction/addition.
How do I think it works? Because I see Chinese people and clients litigate in U.S. courts. Not often–it often takes quite a bit of persuasion (or frustration) to overcome their inertia and dislike of the legal system. But frankly, once they actually embrace the legal system, it does them a lot of good.
I think you’re too complacent in your “knowledge” of the Chinese legal system/culture, and don’t care for any sort of improvement. I normally moderate our your comments, but just so I can say this, I left it: why don’t you provide real solutions for once?