Life and health are vital to everybody, but whom should we claim to when life and health no longer exist? Why there is such a large a difference in compensation for death between Chinese and foreigners?
Attorney Hao Junbo now is handling two claims concerning foreign affairs, which have become model cases when Chinese claim compensation from foreign countries. Attorney Hao Junbo has solid experience on claims concerning foreign affairs.
An accidental disaster took more than 50 persons' life away in a flash:
At twenty past eight on November 21, 2004, MU5210 flight fell into Nanhai Park of Baotou City, Inter Mongolia not more than one minute after takeoff and all 47 passengers and 6 flight crew died, in addition to two men on the ground, leaving endless sorrow and a long and difficult claim road to the families of the victims.
In accordance with the compensation plan of China Eastern Airline, the total sum of compensation for every victim shall be 211, 000yuan. Although it is utterly inadequate, many family of the victim had to accept it due to the heavy difficulty of the claim.
Foreign law firms also paid attention to the development of the case when the investigation group of the air crash carried out the work. Lieff Carbrase joined with the prestigious Chinese firm, Lehman Lee & Xu and filed a wrongful death lawsuit against General Electric and Bombardier in America.
The American court followed the principle of "long arm jurisdiction" and the California court accepted the case. After thorough investigation, attorney Hao Junbo said that Bombardier and GE were sued in the theory of negligence, product strict liability. The reason why China Eastern Airline became the defendant was that China Eastern Airline was the carrier of this flight and it could not preclude the possibility of the negligence in its management, operation and flying of the aircraft.
This is the first time in the history that the family of the victims of an air crash that happened in China chose to sue in America. Attorney Hao Junbo pointed out that Chinese law requires the plaintiff to show the evidence, but at present the plaintiff has no evidence to prove the negligence of the defendant. Therefore there are more difficulties in suing in China. American court has different evidence laws and more compensation may obtained by the application of American law.
On November 21, 2005, Christina Snyder of Federal Court supported the plaintiff's claim and ruled that the case should be heard by the California court.
On February 24, 2006, the American lawyer for China Eastern Airline proposed a motion to the Los Angeles Court and required the court to transfer the case to the Chinese court with the reason of Forum Non Conveniens. Attorney Hao Junbo thought that the defendant was trying to decrease their loss by trying to apply to the Chinese law. In America, the average compensation of the air crash is 1.5 million dollars, in addition to the punitive compensation as may be imposed. According to attorney Hao Junbo, the world famous expert witnesses employed by the plaintiff and the defendant will fight against each other in the court on the issue of jurisdiction over the next few months.
Attorney Hao Junbo said, "Life is invaluable, but as a lawyer, what we can do is just claim the compensation to make up the economic loss of the family of the victim and punish the default party responsible." Attorney Hao Junbo also added that the three defendants are transnational giants and have large group of lawyers, so the possibility of transferring the case to China can not be completely precluded.
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On February 28, 2006, General Administration of Civil Aviation of China formally promulgated "Regulations on the Limit of Liability of Domestic Air Carrier", which increase the limit of liability from 70, 000yuan to 40, 000yuan.
Reflect:
There is great difference in the limit of liability between domestic regulations and Montreal Convention generally applied in the international air industry.
What prevents Chinese people from enjoying the same life value with the citizen of other countries? Who should be responsible for that? I am confused about so many problems.
An imported medicine which was regarded as magic threatened the health of 2 million Chinese people
In China, about 2 million people used Vioxx. a medicine to ease the joint pain, produced by the world medicine giant, MERCK. However, on August 19, 2005, Vioxx was forced to recall due to its defect. (This because taking the medicine for more than 18 months can increase the probability of catching the diseases of cardiopathy and apoplexy. On August 19, 2005 American Texas court rendered that MERCK should indemnify 253 million dollars to the family member of the user of Vioxx who had died. It was the first case adjudicated by the court. There are more than 4000 cased involved in Vioxx in America, in addition to the similar cases in Canada, Europe, Brazil, Australia and Israel. Chinese lawyers also begin to claim for the domestic consumers when the foreign users of Vioxx won the big indemnification.
Attorney Hao Junbo learned about the circumstance of litigation of Vioxx in America from an American peer and began to look for an "appropriate Chinese client". According to Hao Junbo, there are two factors in choosing to sue in America, the first is that it is difficult to determine the defect of the medicine in China, yet in America there is special authority FDA which has found the adverse effect of Vioxx; the second is that American compensation system is more perfect and it can render actual damage and mental damage compensation and large amount of punitive compensation.
"But we are tearing our hair out, because up to now we still can not find the appropriate Chinese consumers. Although many consumers provide their materials," few can provide the original certificate and less can meet the requirements. All the staff of Lehman Lee & Xu hope to help all the Chinese consumers obtain compensation.
As to the safety of medicine, Hao Junbo said, "China does not pay adequate attention to this and it is difficult for the common people to get the evidence. Furthermore, China does not have a medicine recall system and the domestic medicine enterprise may conceal the fact that their product is defective. The international compensation of Vioxx should arouse the attention of Chinese supervision and management authority of medicine and promote the perfection of Chinese medicine supervision and management system to protect the health of Chinese people.
Hao Junbo also said, "I believe there must be clients who meet all the requirements in the 2 million Chinese users of Vioxx, once we find them, we will institute the proceedings immediately. We have confidence in winning the case since America has [passed the previous] recovery case. Although we may face more difficulties, we have confidence in getting more compensation for domestic consumers."
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According to the internet data, there are as more as over 2.5 million people in China connected to the adverse effect of the medicine, and approximately 200, 000 people died of adverse effects of medicine. But unfortunately, the medicine listed in the announcement of the medicine with adverse effect has never been prohibited to produce or use.
Reflect:
On August 2004, FDA found the fatal adverse effect of Vioxx and MERCK recalled the medicine in the same year. What we should pay more attention may be the attitude of foreign country to the defect product. The domestic enterprises usually conceal the fact of the product, and the imperfection law also helped the enterprise in some degree.
The adverse effects of Vioxx damaged the health of the Chinese people, but the recall of MERCK should be reflected and studied by Chinese people. We should extend many thanks to Lehman Lee & Xu and attorney Hao junbo who responsible for the case of Vioxx and extend thanks to the world medicine giant MERCK who has had the courage to recall the medicine.
Friendly clue:
You can log on the website of Lehman Lee & Xu (www.liminlaw.co.cn) or contact attorney Hao Junbo (13718052888/010-85321919-306) to get more information about the claim against Vioxx.
"Chinese consumers claiming international compensation" is really a new topic and we have few experience and correspondent regulations. Although we have to face lot of difficulties, we have a lot of confidence. The most difficult obstacle may be the lag of the Chinese law and that the foreign countries may rely on applying the Chinese law. When we are faced with the air crash and defect medicine, whether we have thought about what legal measures we should take to prevent the disaster? Is fixing the price of life and health too low the reason that the accidental disasters happened again and again?
