#High-speed rail engineering accident faces huge claim; lawyer turns the tide to secure substantial reduction

📅 2018-07-10 📂 Civil and Commercial LitigationCivil and Commercial Litigation 🏷️ #Reduction #HugeClaims #Lawyer #HighSpeedRailEngineeringAccident


In October 2010, because the 294th pier of the Danzi Super Major Bridge on the Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway built by China Railway 17th Bureau Group might affect the underground natural gas pipeline of Guangdong Dapeng LNG Company, after multiple consultations, it was decided that Dapeng Company would provide the pipeline coordinates to China Railway Fourth Survey and Design Institute Co., Ltd. to modify the design of the 294th pier. On the afternoon of December 13, under the on-site supervision of the Railway Science Academy (Beijing) Engineering Consulting Company, the impact pile driver of China Railway 17th Bureau began operation, and soon bubbles continuously emerged from the mud in the pile hole. Testing revealed that the underground natural gas pipeline of Dapeng Company was partially ruptured due to the impact pile driver construction, causing a safety accident. Afterwards, China Ping An Property Insurance Company paid insurance compensation to Dapeng Company and subsequently sued China Railway 17th Bureau, the Railway Science Academy, China Railway Fourth Survey and Design Institute, and Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway Guangdong Co., Ltd., demanding that these four entities jointly compensate Ping An Insurance for subrogated economic losses of 17.69 million yuan. China Railway 17th Bureau entrusted the lawyer team of Wang Tengfeng from Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm to respond to the lawsuit. With the assistance of assistant lawyer Cao Guanghui, Zhiming Law Firm's director Wang Tengfeng personally handled this case.

After reading the prosecution materials, lawyer Wang Tengfeng believed that the evidence in this case was highly unfavorable to China Railway 17th Bureau. In particular, the "12.13" Guangdong Dapeng LNG Gas Pipeline Leak Accident Investigation Report issued by the accident investigation team experts determined that China Railway 17th Bureau had "illegal command and illegal operations" and bore "primary responsibility" for this accident, as if it had already sentenced China Railway 17th Bureau to "death." However, the never-give-up lawyer Wang Tengfeng, after repeatedly interpreting the Investigation Report, cleverly summarized several points of agency opinion in court. First, Dapeng Company neglected on-site safety management and failed to properly supervise the construction process. Second, before the accident at pile No. 8, China Railway 17th Bureau had submitted the pipeline alignment coordinates provided by Dapeng Company to the Fourth Railway Survey and Design Institute for pier position change design, which directly led to the placement of China Railway 17th Bureau's pile No. 8 directly above the natural gas pipeline. Additionally, apart from Dapeng Company and China Railway 17th Bureau, the Railway Science Institute responsible for engineering supervision and the Guangdong Branch of Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway responsible for project construction also bore varying degrees of indirect responsibility for this accident. Finally, based on the characterization in the Investigation Report, this accident was more a result of the indirect combination of actions by the construction unit, supervision unit, design unit, and construction unit. Therefore, in terms of liability allocation and assumption, proportional liability should be borne according to the causes of the accident and respective faults, rather than the joint liability claimed by the plaintiff.

Ultimately, the collegial panel, while respecting the Investigation Report of the district investigation team, fully adopted the agency opinion of lawyer Wang Tengfeng and ruled that Dapeng Company should bear 20% proportional liability for the accident, while China Railway 17th Bureau only needed to bear 56% proportional liability. This significantly reduced the compensation amount for China Railway 17th Bureau to 9.9 million yuan, which was truly remarkable.

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