What's wrong with this lawyer?!-Chapter 1022 - 331: 1 O’Clock Legal Popularization Work
Chapter 1022 -331: 1 O’Clock Legal Popularization Work
Wang Qingqing was completely stunned by Tang Fangjing’s words and quickly responded, “Brother Tang, do you mean to say that we need to carry out five more lawsuits like this?”
“The scale of suing the five best-selling car companies in Modu—how big does that have to be… Brother Tang, just hearing you say it makes my heart race. Are we really going this big?”
Tang Fangjing chuckled and said, “When it comes to legal education activities, if we don’t go big, a lot of people won’t feel like monopolies have any impact on their lives.”
“To help everyone fully understand the harm of monopolies, we have to overcorrect!”
“Of course, we need a method to this madness. We can’t do it like last time where I just shared a suggestion and everyone swarmed in unorganized chaos—it made me look unhinged.”
“So, Brother Tang, what’s your plan now?” Wang Qingqing suppressed her worries and asked again.
Tang Fangjing immediately said, “Let me ask you this, Qingqing: in monopoly cases, are the consumers being harmed specific or non-specific?”
When dealing with Wang Qingqing, you had to lay out the options. Otherwise, given her level of ‘expertise,’ you’d just end up staring blankly at each other.
If you can’t do a fill-in-the-blank question, you can at least randomly guess at a multiple-choice one, right? Otherwise, how does the conversation even continue!
Wang Qingqing tried cautiously, “It should be non-specific, right?”
“Exactly, it’s non-specific. Because there are so many people affected, the previous lawsuits had such a sweeping scale and got chaotic. So, in cases involving non-specific groups, doesn’t it make sense to start with public interest litigation?” Tang Fangjing said with a smile.
Monopoly and public interest litigation?
“Brother Tang, are you saying to initiate public interest litigation directly?”
Tang Fangjing nodded and said, “Yes, exactly public interest litigation. Don’t you think the terms ‘monopoly’ and ‘public interest litigation’ go perfectly together?”
“For these monopoly situations, lawsuits filed by individual consumers don’t actually have much impact, so doesn’t it perfectly meet the criteria for public interest litigation?”
This was something he had thought about for a long time. Currently, the consumer-related public interest lawsuits in the country were still mostly focused on common infringements like standard form contracts.
But public interest litigation stemming from monopolies? That had never happened before!
“Besides, public interest litigation has many advantages. The most immediate one is this: as long as the public interest lawsuit is successful, consumers can piggyback off it. I wouldn’t even need to rally anyone; consumers would rush in all on their own.”
“True legal advocacy is the kind that motivates people intrinsically!”
On this, Tang Fangjing wasn’t just rambling. Back in 2016, the Supreme Court issued the “Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Issues Concerning Application of Law in the Trial of Consumer Public Interest Litigation Cases.”
Article 16 of it stated: For facts established by effective judgments in consumer public interest litigation, subsequent lawsuits filed by consumers who suffered damage from the same infringement under Article 119 of the Civil Procedure Law don’t require either the plaintiff or defendant to present evidence for those facts, unless the parties can provide contrary evidence sufficient to overturn them. (Note 1)
If that’s hard to understand, let’s break it down with an example.
Take this monopoly case, for instance. In Tang Fangjing’s previous lawsuit, he had to submit multiple pieces of evidence: penalty decisions, contracts between distributors and manufacturers, price differences before and after the penalties, and so on.
Even if Tang Fangjing won, other consumers who filed lawsuits later would still need to prepare the same evidence, and all of it would need to pass evidentiary review to be accepted by the court.
But with an effective judgment from public interest litigation, it means you don’t have to provide or prove any of those things.
Anyone who has been involved in a lawsuit knows the most troublesome part isn’t the in-court proceedings; it’s the preparatory work beforehand.
And the most crucial part of preparation is gathering evidence.
The regulations are there, and many people can learn some basic legal knowledge on their own, but collecting and organizing evidence, forming an evidentiary chain, and proving your claims—these are all very professional tasks.
With a judgment from public interest litigation, you don’t have to tackle the most taxing aspects. That’s the benefit. That’s what we call “piggybacking.”
It makes things easier for the plaintiff and for the court.
The only question now is, who should be the plaintiff?
The first group that came to Tang Fangjing’s mind was the Handong Province Consumer Association. They had collaborated many times in the past, and he planned to involve them again this time!
As always, Tang would do all the work; they just needed to lend their name.
Chaos was stirring online. In a small room in Bright District, 33-year-old Kong Jianling stared at the news on her phone, her emotions blazing.
She was the single mother who had gone viral online as the one “left without pay because of Tang Fangjing.”
She did indeed have an eight-year-old child, and she had in fact worked as a salesperson at a four-S dealership in Jingzhou, struggling financially because her company couldn’t pay wages.
Her decision to step forward had partly stemmed from real financial troubles and partly from a nudge from her boss.
So she stood up, never expecting to go viral, nor for so many people online to donate money to her!
It was far quicker than earning a salary from work—almost like striking it rich overnight!
Honestly, at this point, Kong Jianling wasn’t even keen on going back to her job. How much could she possibly make working? Being an internet celebrity was way more lucrative.
At the moment, Kong Jianling was streaming live.
“I don’t actually blame Lawyer Tang. He’s doing this for everyone’s benefit, but I really have no choice—I just couldn’t make ends meet. Some people are asking how I know my boss isn’t deceiving me…”
