CNY 81,252 Awarded in Traffic Accident Injury Claim
In a recent personal injury case arising from a traffic accident, an Eastern China court ordered compensation totaling 81,252.28 CNY to a motorcycle passenger who suffered serious injuries. The plaintiff, Mr. Li, brought the action against the driver of the truck, Mr. Zhao, and the truck’s insurer. The court allocated liability between the compulsory insurance policy and the at-fault driver, reducing the claim for certain disputed items. The judgment provides a clear example of how courts apportion damages in multi-party motor vehicle collisions under Chinese tort and insurance law.
On 24 July 2009, a medium-duty truck owned by Mr. Zhao and driven by his employee, Mr. Li (the driver, not the plaintiff), collided with an unlicensed motorcycle driven by Mr. Wang in Eastern China City. The plaintiff, Mr. Li (the passenger on the motorcycle), was seriously injured. The traffic police found that Mr. Wang and the truck driver each bore 50 percent fault, while the plaintiff had no responsibility. Mr. Li sustained multiple injuries including brain contusions, subdural hematomas, rib and leg fractures, and spent 28 days in hospital. His medical expenses reached 81,922.56 CNY. He later sued Mr. Zhao and the insurer for a total of 210,733.76 CNY, covering medical costs, disability compensation, lost income, nursing care, future surgery, and emotional distress. Mr. Zhao had already paid 40,000 CNY toward the medical bills. The plaintiff waived any claim against Mr. Wang.
During the hearing, the court examined the accident report, hospital records, medical invoices, and a expert assessment that rated the plaintiff’s permanent disability at level nine and level ten (on a scale where one is most severe). The insurer challenged the reasonableness of some expenses, particularly outpatient costs without matching records and the length of the recovery period. The parties later reached agreements on certain items: the lost work period was set at 178 days, and the cost for future removal of internal fixation hardware was fixed at 7,000 CNY. The court accepted the expert report, noting that the plaintiff’s internal fixation had not been removed at the time of the assessment but that the expert had proper qualifications. The court also accepted a certificate from a local police station confirming the plaintiff’s dependent children.
The court held that the traffic police’s fault determination was correct. Because the truck was insured under a compulsory third-party liability policy (jiao qiang xian), the insurer must pay first up to the policy limits, sharing proportionally with another injured party from the same accident (Mr. Wang, who had filed a separate lawsuit). The plaintiff’s total reasonable economic losses were calculated at 187,304.56 CNY. This included 81,553.36 CNY in medical expenses, 71,547.