Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 154 : The Paper Arrived Before the Date

Peng Weidong stood at the entrance of the Third Courtroom, squeezing his ID card in his hand until the edges went damp.

The doors weren't open yet. At the far end of the hallway a cleaner was mopping, the mop not wrung out properly, water pooling in a thin bright line along the tile grout. Every step made a sound.

Peng Weiguo crouched beneath the fire hydrant, smoking. He got halfway through a cigarette, crushed it out under his heel. A moment later he took out another, lit it, took two drags, stubbed it out anyway, and tucked it back into the pack.

"Just finish it," Peng Weidong said.

"I'm done," Peng Weiguo said. "Not allowed inside."

At 8:40, Ma Jianjun came up the stairs, helmet tucked under his arm, both ears red from the cold. He didn't sit. He stood against the wall and glanced at the door.

"Lawyer Shen here yet?"

"Upstairs," Peng Weidong said. "She went up earlier to drop something off."

At 8:45, Shen Zhixia came down the stairs. A hard-shell folder hugged to her chest, a cloth bag over her shoulder, with He Xiufen half a step behind, carrying a thermos. At the far end of the corridor, Lin Qi sat in the last row of plastic chairs, a cloth bag on her knees, her phone in her hand, screen down.

"Everything for court is with me," Shen Zhixia said. "You don't need to bring anything. Just that phone."

"That's all I have."

"When I call you, then you come in." Shen Zhixia hitched the strap of the cloth bag higher. "Once you're in, no matter what I say, look at my face first."

"Look at your face, or look at your eyes?"

"Look at my face."

Lin Qi nodded and switched the phone to her other hand. There were two marks on her knuckles, worn there by a pen with a cracked cap.

At 8:50, the court clerk came out to read the courtroom rules: phones fully off, no recording, no video. One by one the people in the hallway went inside. Ma Jianjun walked in last and sat in the very back of the gallery, off to the side, helmet on the floor by his feet. Peng Weiguo sat next to him, both hands flat on his knees.

In the front row of the gallery sat someone in a dark overcoat, coat still on, collar up. As Shen Zhixia passed him, she recognized him — Deputy Director Huang Weizhong from Chengbei Hospital. He didn't look at her. His eyes were fixed on the judges' bench.

The plaintiff's bench was on the left, the defendant's bench on the right. Two people were already seated at the defendant's bench. The one on the left was Lu Jibai, three sheets of paper laid out on a folder, corners perfectly aligned, pen resting along the paper's edge. He lifted his eyes once, let them rest on her face for half a beat, then dropped them back to the case file.

Shen Zhixia took her seat at the plaintiff's bench and opened the hard-shell folder, going over each compartment: the left side — two pages of the original witness application, Peng Weidong's power of attorney, the three pages of interview records from the District Health Commission. The right side — three pages of the Legal Opinion Letter, with the fold line she'd creased herself. The second item was Lin Qi's phone, currently in the pocket of that down jacket out in the corridor. The third item: the photocopy of the shift handover record, her own on-site record from January 21st, and Qi Xiuyun's page.

He Xiufen sat on her right, screwing the thermos cap off and on, saying nothing.

At exactly 9:00, the gavel struck the desk once, not loud.

The presiding judge was in his fifties, the left temple of his glasses wrapped twice with white thread. He opened the case file and read the cause of action: medical damage liability dispute. The two other members of the collegial panel sat on either side — one flipping through papers continuously, the other holding a pen.

Roll call. When the name "Peng Weidong, plaintiff" was read, Peng Weidong stood and answered "Present," bracing one hand against the table. When "legal guardian of Peng Nianman" was read, he answered "Present" again. When the plaintiff's authorized agents were read, Shen Zhixia and He Xiufen answered together.

"Two authorized litigation agents for the defendant, Chengbei Hospital," the clerk said. "Lu Jibai, lawyer, Jiangzhou Hengzheng Law Firm."

"Present."

"Chengbei Hospital Medical Affairs Office—"

"Present."

The clerk read those last three words very fast. Shen Zhixia looked up at the defendant's bench: that name, today, was spoken aloud in court, in front of the hospital's own people.

"Any recusal requests regarding the collegial panel?"

"No request." Both sides answered.

"Plaintiff, state your claims."

Shen Zhixia stood and read the three items through: requesting the court to order the defendant to compensate various losses caused by medical damage; requesting the court to entrust a medical damage appraisal to determine cause of death and fault; litigation costs to be borne by the defendant.

"Defendant, respond."

Lu Jibai stood. He read in an even voice, one sentence at a time, as if he had arranged the order on paper long ago.

"First: the patient, Chen Xiaoman, died of postpartum hemorrhage, a serious obstetrical complication. After discovering it, the hospital immediately organized resuscitation. The measures were timely and conformed to standards of care. There is no causal relationship between her death and the medical treatment provided.

"Second: the individual irregularities in the medical records were the personal actions of the on-duty physician, and the hospital has already taken disciplinary action against her. Problems with one person's documentation do not mean that the diagnosis and treatment themselves were at fault.

"Third: what the plaintiff has submitted are materials sent to and replied from an administrative department. What must be determined in this case is cause of death and fault, which should be established through the appraisal process. Liability cannot be inferred from administrative materials."

He finished and sat down, straightening the three sheets again. At the defendant's bench, Director Xu's finger tapped once against the edge of the table, very lightly.

Suppress the cause of death, suppress the records, suppress the procedure. She had copied those three points from the Statement of Defense herself. Today, hearing him read them in person, not a single word of the order had changed. She capped her pen, then uncapped it again.

"The court will now proceed to evidence presentation and cross-examination. Plaintiff, present your evidence."

Shen Zhixia pulled out the stack from the left side of the folder.

"Your Honor, the plaintiff has three groups of evidence. Group one: the sealed medical records, the photocopy verification record, and the on-site record from January 21st, the day the shift handover retention log was collected. Group two: the disputed photocopy of the shift handover record, and the receipt and reply regarding the defendant's materials submitted to the administrative department. Group three: an electronic record, which I will ask the court to view when the witness takes the stand."

She paused.

"I won't present those last two items yet. First, I'd like to present a few pages of paper that we did not collect ourselves."

"Page one: the materials submitted by the defendant to the Medical Administration Division of the Chengbei District Health Commission, received on January 27th, eleven pages in total. This page is the receipt register, showing the date the documents were received.

"Page two: page eleven of the submission file — the Self-Review Statement on Changes to Medical Records. The date on this page is January 28th.

"Page three: page three of the Statement of Defense submitted by the defendant to this court on January 18th. This line reads: 'The department reorganized and transcribed the shift handover record according to internal management requirements.'

"Page four: the Reply on Time-Limited Explanation, submitted by the defendant to the Medical Administration Division of the District Health Commission on February 13th."

She laid the four pages out side by side, aligning the top edges into one straight line, holding them down with her fingers.

[Thud. The paper arrived before the date. You only read dates. Don't argue the logic.]

"These four pages placed together tell one story," she said. "The document that went into the district's file on January 27th bears the date of January 28th.

"This page was already lying in the file before the day its date claims it was written."

The courtroom went quiet. The clerk's keyboard sounds hung in mid-air.

"Either the date these materials entered the district's records was not the 27th — or the date on that page is not the day the words were written." She said. "Which one is true. Defendant, please answer."

Lu Jibai stood.

"Your Honor, pages three and four presented by the plaintiff are documents submitted by the defendant to the administrative department. They are materials from administrative proceedings and have no bearing on the medical damage dispute in this case. Using administrative materials to find fault in diagnosis and treatment is procedurally invalid."

[Thud. He says they're irrelevant. Ask the court to record it. Don't argue with him.]

"Your Honor, I ask the court to note one thing in the record," Shen Zhixia said. "Page three is the defendant's own Statement of Defense submitted to this court on January 18th. It is already part of this case's file. Page four is the explanation demanded by the District Health Commission under a three-business-day deadline — a deadline the defendant set for itself. Whether these two pages are materials in this case, the court can see from the paper itself."

"Entered into the record," the presiding judge said. His pen traced a line across the file before lifting. "Defendant, continue."

Lu Jibai offered no second sentence. He sat down, both hands pressed on the folder.

"Regarding page four, I have one more question for the defendant," Shen Zhixia said.

"Ask."

"The defendant's materials submitted to the district say that those two strokes of writing in the shift handover record were written by the person involved. Yet on this page, the 'writer' column is blank. And in the 'handler' column, three characters are written — the name of Director Xu here, from the Medical Affairs Office."

She raised her eyes to the defendant's bench.

"Defendant, please tell us: who wrote those two strokes of writing."

No one at the defendant's bench spoke right away.

Director Xu's hand drew back across the tabletop. He turned his head and glanced at Lu Jibai. Just one glance.

"Defendant, answer," the presiding judge said.

Lu Jibai turned to the next page in his hand. "Your Honor, the defendant needs to verify with the hospital the source and formation of this page. We request the court's permission to address this in our cross-examination opinion."

"Granted," the presiding judge said, glancing at him. "But you will answer today."

[Thud. If he doesn't fill in that column, it stays blank forever.]

Shen Zhixia didn't press further. She returned page four to the hard-shell folder and gathered the four pages into one stack, weighing them in her hand. The three pages on the defendant's bench were arranged in exactly the same style as the stack in her hand.

In the front row of the gallery, Huang Weizhong took a pen from his overcoat pocket and jotted two notes on a piece of paper.

"Your Honor, the plaintiff requests that a witness be called to testify."

She passed the two-page original of the Witness Testimony Application forward, and the clerk handed it to the presiding judge. He read it through, then turned it over. On the back were a few scratch marks, and beneath the scratches, five characters written in. He didn't read them aloud. He squared the two pages and set them at the edge of the case file.

"Witness's name, occupation, relationship to the parties."

"Lin Qi. Obstetrician at Chengbei Hospital. An employee of the defendant's unit." Shen Zhixia said. "Her practice certificate has been suspended, and the hospital has reported to the District Health Commission recommending its revocation."

The sentence landed. Two or three heads in the gallery turned at once.

"Does the defendant have any objection to the plaintiff's request for this witness to testify?"

Director Xu leaned an inch toward Lu Jibai. He said something against the tabletop, so low that nothing could be heard from the plaintiff's bench. Lu Jibai listened, then laid his pen on the paper.

"No objection."

He answered very quietly, sat down, and folded both hands on top of the folder.

Last night at 10:17, in that phone call, the hospital had asked him the same question — would Lin Qi testify. His answer then had been "I don't know." Today, in front of the hospital's own people, he had answered the question.

[Thud. Last night he said he didn't know. Today he says no objection.]

The presiding judge wrote two lines in the file and set down his pen.

"Request granted. Witness Lin Qi, please come to the stand."

The clerk went to open the door.

When the door opened, a sliver of light from the hallway slanted in and fell across the floor in front of the plaintiff's bench. Lin Qi walked in through that light. Dark blue down jacket, zipper pulled to the top, phone in her hand, screen down.

She passed behind Peng Weidong. Both of his hands were braced on his knees, head lowered, not looking back. She passed the defendant's bench — the person closest to the inside pressed down the front of his jacket, his eyes not following her.

She stopped in front of the witness stand. The surface was just over a foot wide, holding a few pages of paper and a pen.

The presiding judge closed the two-page application.

"Witness Lin Qi, state your name and occupation."

She set the phone down on the stand, screen down, then lifted her head. In this room sat the people who had handled every piece of her paper over the past months.

"My name is Lin Qi," she said. "Obstetrician at Chengbei Hospital. Currently without a practice certificate."