#High-speed rail engineering accident faces huge claim; lawyer turns the tide to secure substantial reduction
In October 2010, because the pile for Pier No. 294 of the Danzi Overpass Bridge on the Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway, constructed by China Railway 17th Bureau Group, might affect the underground natural gas pipeline of Guangdong Dapeng LNG Company, the two parties decided after multiple consultations that Dapeng Company would provide the pipeline coordinates to China Railway Fourth Survey and Design Institute Group Co., Ltd. to modify the design of Pier No. 294. On the afternoon of December 13, under the on-site supervision of the Railway Science Research Institute (Beijing) Engineering Consulting Company, China Railway 17th Bureau's impact pile driver began operations, and soon bubbles continuously emerged from the mud in the pile hole. Testing revealed that Dapeng Company's underground natural gas pipeline had been partially ruptured due to the impact pile driver operations, resulting in a safety accident. Subsequently, Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance Company of China paid insurance compensation to Dapeng Company and then filed a lawsuit against China Railway 17th Bureau, the Railway Science Research Institute, the Fourth Survey and Design Institute, and Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway Guangdong Co., Ltd., demanding that the four entities jointly and severally compensate the insurance company for subrogated economic losses of 17.69 million yuan. China Railway 17th Bureau entrusted the Zhiming lawyer team from Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm to defend the case. With the assistance of assistant lawyer Cao Guanghui, Lawyer Zhiming from Zhiming Law Firm personally handled the case.
After reviewing the complaint materials, Zhiming lawyers concluded that the evidence in this case was highly unfavorable to China Railway 17th Bureau Group. In particular, the "Report on the Investigation of the '12.13' Guangdong Dapeng LNG Gas Pipeline Leakage Accident" issued by experts from the accident investigation team determined that China Railway 17th Bureau Group had engaged in "violations of command and operations" and bore "primary responsibility" for the accident, which seemed to have effectively sentenced China Railway 17th Bureau Group to "death." However, the undaunted Zhiming lawyers, after repeatedly interpreting the Investigation Report, skillfully summarized several points of representation in court. First, Dapeng Company was negligent in on-site safety management and failed to properly supervise the construction process. Second, prior to the accident at Pile No. 8, China Railway 17th Bureau Group had submitted the pipeline alignment coordinates provided by Dapeng Company to the Fourth Survey and Design Institute for revised design of the pier positions, which directly resulted in Pile No. 8 being placed directly above the natural gas pipeline. Furthermore, in addition to Dapeng Company and China Railway 17th Bureau Group, the China Academy of Railway Sciences, responsible for engineering supervision, and the Guangdong Branch of Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway, responsible for engineering construction, both bore varying degrees of indirect liability for the accident. Finally, based on the characterization set forth in the Investigation Report, this accident was more a result of the indirect combination of the respective actions of the construction unit, supervision unit, design unit, and construction owner. Therefore, in terms of liability allocation and assumption, liability should be apportioned proportionally based on the causes of the accident and each party's respective fault, rather than joint and several liability as claimed by the plaintiff.
Ultimately, the collegiate bench, while respecting the Investigation Report of the district investigation team, fully adopted the代理意见 of Attorney Zhiming, ruling that Dapeng Company bears a several liability of 20% for the accident, while China Railway 17th Bureau is only required to assume 56% of the several liability for compensation. This significantly reduced China Railway 17th Bureau's compensation amount to 9.9 million yuan, which was no easy feat.
