Grassroots lawyers also have their day

Chapter 948 This idea is bizarre!

On this day, Wang Chuan was reading documents in his office when Du Wenhui walked in.

"Wang Lu, are you free tomorrow afternoon?" Du Wenhui asked.

"I have time, but I don't have any plans right now! What's wrong?" Wang Chuan asked, looking up.

"Three clients have requested to visit tomorrow. Two of them have already been scheduled: one is Martin Clothing Company, and the other is an insurance company. I will go to Martin Clothing Company tomorrow morning, and Attorney Jiao Heng will go to the insurance company."

"The last company, CM, was booked by President Situ at the last minute. She needs to consult on labor issues, and we can't make any arrangements. Could you go there for us if you have time?" Du Wenhui said.

"Okay, no problem. What time?" Wang Chuan asked.

"President Situ has arranged to meet at 10:30 a.m. in their company's conference room," Du Wenhui said.

"Okay, leave it to me. I'll go see President Situ tomorrow." Wang Chuan said, "By the way, how many clients still have legal fees under 100,000? What percentage do they represent?"

"There aren't many left. Since last year, we've been consciously filtering out some low-fee clients. Now, regular clients with legal fees under 100,000 yuan should account for less than 30%. The rest are mainly legal advisors for large enterprises and government departments," Du Wenhui said after thinking for a moment.

"Yes, we will continue to reduce costs this year, trying to reduce them to below 10%, and devote most of our team's energy to major clients with higher returns."

"Shen's Group is currently holding a legal tender, and we will be participating. If we win the bid, we must assign a senior lawyer to provide services. This is a large company; if we can secure their services, tens of millions in legal fees annually will not be a problem," Wang Chuan said.

"Yes, don't worry, I will definitely arrange for a highly skilled lawyer to provide them with services."

"There are twelve intern lawyers this year. How many will we keep after they become full-time lawyers?" Du Wenhui asked.

"You should ask for everyone's opinions. After all, they're interns at your own law firm, so you know them well. If they're really good, you can keep them, but we must be selective and not hire the wrong people. Let's keep the total number of people retained to no more than ten," Wang Chuan said.

Du Wenhui is currently responsible for the arrangement and formal employment of intern lawyers in the law firm, but Wang Chuan still oversees matters such as controlling the number of lawyers in each department of the law firm.

"Okay, I'll go arrange it right away." Du Wenhui said and left the office.

The next morning, He Bin took Wang Chuan to CM Company, where he was received by Situ Ting, the general manager of the legal department.

"Mr. Situ, I heard from my colleagues that your company has something to consult. What is it?" After exchanging a few polite words, Wang Chuan asked.

"Yes, we do have a labor-related question to consult about. We have a company in Henan Province, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary. Let Sun Xing explain the details to you!" After saying that, Situ Ting gestured to legal specialist Sun Xing that they could begin.

"Attorney Wang, these are copies of the labor arbitration award and the court judgment. Please take a look, and I will explain the case to you."

We have an employee in our Henan company, surnamed Gao. He joined the company on January 4, 2014, and has been working as a workshop worker in the Henan company. When he joined, the company's administrative staff forgot to sign a labor contract with him due to negligence. It was not discovered until June 2 that the labor contract was signed retroactively.

In July 2015, due to losses caused to the company by his operational error, the Henan branch issued him a notice of termination of employment in accordance with the employee handbook. He also cooperated with the company to complete the handover process.

Later, the employee surnamed Gao applied for labor arbitration, claiming that the Henan branch of the company had failed to sign a labor relationship in accordance with the law, and demanded compensation of more than 30,000 yuan. The labor arbitration committee rejected his arbitration application on the grounds that it exceeded the statute of limitations.

He later filed a lawsuit in court. This labor dispute case was handled by the Henan Provincial Company itself, which hired a local lawyer.

The court held that it was a fact that the Henan branch of the company did not sign a labor contract with the employee surnamed Gao from January 4, 2014 to June 3, 2015. Although a labor contract was later signed, it violated the provisions of the Labor Contract Law. The company should pay the employee six months' wages, or 33,000 yuan, according to the contract, which was set at 5,500 yuan per month.

After the verdict was issued, the Henan company appealed. The lawyer representing the company argued that the employee surnamed Gao's claims had exceeded the statute of limitations for arbitration and should be dismissed.

However, the court held that although the "Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law of the People's Republic of China" stipulates that the time limit for applying for arbitration of labor disputes is one year, it does not deny that the legitimate rights and interests of the rights holder will be lost after the one-year time limit for applying for arbitration has expired.

According to Article 77 of the Labor Contract Law, if a worker's legitimate rights and interests are infringed upon, they have the right to request the relevant departments to handle the matter according to law, or to apply for arbitration or file a lawsuit according to law. Article 135 of the General Principles of Civil Law stipulates: "The limitation period for filing a lawsuit with a people's court to protect civil rights is two years." (At this time, the Civil Code had not yet been implemented, and the limitation period had not yet been adjusted to three years.)

The court held that although the arbitration application was rejected more than one year after the application was filed, the request to the People's Court to protect the civil rights and interests of the plaintiff had not exceeded the statute of limitations. Therefore, the appeal was dismissed and the original judgment was upheld.

We were completely stunned when we received the judgment. Forgive our ignorance, but we had never seen a judgment like this before. It was utterly mind-blowing! The court's imagination must be wild!" Sun Xing said to Wang Chuan in surprise.

Wang Chuan glanced through the first and second instance court judgments, put them down, thought about his wording, and organized his thoughts: "Labor dispute cases are highly regional, and even in the same region, different courts, or even different judges in the same court, may give completely opposite judgments on the same case."

However, as a seasoned lawyer, I must admit that the content of this judgment has overturned my worldview; not only that, it has also overturned the mainstream views within the current judicial community!

(This case is based on a real event and is not a fabrication by the author. The judge may have been a novelist who couldn't get a contract and became a judge instead. Otherwise, his imagination wouldn't be so wild. It's truly admirable. As for why, please read on.)

Situ Ting and Sun Xing were not surprised by Wang Chuan's words, because they had also looked up the relevant regulations and cases before and shared the same feelings as Wang Chuan.

"Let me ask first, when your company's Henan subsidiary signed the supplementary employment contract, what was the date on the contract? Was it the date of joining the company on January 1, 2014?" Wang Chuan asked.

"Yes, although it's a retroactive employment contract, the date is backdated, and it's dated the first day of employment," Sun Xing said. "Here's a copy of the employment contract."

"Well, first of all, let's talk about the statute of limitations in this case."

To be honest, this is the first time I've seen a ruling like this: a one-year statute of limitations applies during the labor arbitration stage, but a two-year statute of limitations applies after the case goes to court!

The meaning is clear: labor arbitration and court litigation each apply their own regulations, and the two sets of regulations are not interchangeable. This idea is, to say the least, quite bizarre! — Wang Chuan

(End of this chapter)