Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 25 : Filing the Complaint

The line curled from below the filing hall steps around to the edge of the flowerbed. When the wind swept through, the corners of the papers in everyone's hands lifted—pressed down, held down, rolled up. She was fourth in line, the document envelope hugged to her chest, pinching the zipper twice.

December 5, 8:40 a.m.

The man in front of her turned back and asked, "Which window is it for labor disputes?"

"Go in and take a number. Civil case filing." She said, "What you've got there—is it an arbitration award?"

"An IOU." He flipped the paper over to show her. "Written by the boss."

"An IOU goes to arbitration first. If you don't accept the arbitration ruling, then you come here."

The man stuffed the paper back into his pocket, muttered something, and said no more. She saw a greasy handprint smudged along the edge of the stack.

She had organized the materials three times the night before: the Complaint, the Evidence List, two sets of evidence copies, the Letter of Recommendation, the Power of Attorney, proof of identity, the Arbitration Award, the Proof of Service, and a copy of Ma Jianjun's ID card fresh from the office copier, the paper still carrying its warmth. The last page, the parties, had taken the longest—Plaintiff: Ma Jianjun, male; Defendant 1: Hurricane Express (Jiangzhou) Network Technology Co., Ltd.; Defendant 2: Jiangzhou Sutong Delivery Service Co., Ltd. The two names sat side by side in the same box, spaced exactly even.

She had paused for a while when filling in that section. On the paper in the last case, there had been only one name. Behind that name was a vacated rental, a sign nailed to the door.

She felt through the items in the envelope once more. The first item on the Evidence List was the photos of the shift schedule from the group chat; the second was the Late-Arrival List; the third was the IOU. The evidence was all in Ma Jianjun's old phone. The phone couldn't be filed into the record, but he could walk into court. She went over the instruction in her mind again: bring the phone, keep it powered on, don't delete a thing.

At exactly nine, the glass door was opened from inside. People moved forward, through security, took numbers. Hers was A017.

"Corrections or filing?"

"Filing." She pushed the materials under the window. "Contesting an arbitration award. Filing suit. Labor dispute."

Inside the window sat a man around thirty, short-haired, with a white porcelain cup beside his hand and tea leaves floating on top. He flipped to the parties page, his pen tip stopping at the defendant section.

"Two defendants."

"Two."

"The arbitration award lists only one party." He looked up at her. "This Sutong company wasn't in that case."

"It wasn't in that case, but it's on the paper in this one." She nudged the Evidence List forward. "Page five of the award states that delivery is part of the respondent's business. The layer that subcontracted it out doesn't have the qualifications to act as an employer. Responsibility moves upward."

"Grounds?"

"There's an analogous case: where business is contracted out to an organization or natural person that lacks the qualifications to act as an employer, the contracting party bears the employer's responsibility."

"Analogous cases are for the hearing." He lifted his pen. "I only take paper here."

He paged through. Letter of Recommendation, Power of Attorney, the Evidence List she had put together herself—counting page by page. At the third page, he stopped.

"What's in this column?"

"Source of evidence," she said. "The shift schedule and the Late-Arrival List are in the plaintiff's phone. They'll come in with him on the hearing day."

"Have him bring the phone."

"Noted."

He turned to the last page, pulled out a filing receipt, and his pen paused over the date box. "Filing fee: ten yuan."

She counted out two five-yuan bills, smoothed them flat, and slid them across. Her hands were stiff. The corners of the bills slipped under her fingers, and she had to press them once more to push them through.

"Notice of Acceptance within seven days." He stamped the receipt. "Defendant 1 gets served at the published address. Defendant 2 the same. If it can't be delivered, public notice."

"I just spent last week waiting through a public notice."

"Whether you get to wait is not up to me." He pushed the receipt and the payment slip out together. "Copies: one for each of the two defendants."

One each. She signed in the representative column, folded the receipt, and tucked it into the document envelope.

On the way out, she looked back at the sign on the door. A copy would be sent to the company. Someone there would sign for it, and behind the signer was an office, and the person sitting in that office had asked her in court last time: he doesn't even have a work badge anymore.

[Thud. Case registration. The papers went into the cabinet; the person was still outside the door.]

At Zhengping Firm in the afternoon, the stove downstairs kept up its noise. He Xiufen was rolling out dough. The board thumped, fell quiet, thumped again. Flour drifted in the light by the foot of the window.

She spread the filing receipt flat on the table.

"Filed it."

"How many pages?" He Xiufen didn't look up.

"Eleven pages."

"Which page did the clerk stop on?"

"He stopped at the defendant section."

He Xiufen wiped her hands twice on her apron, came over to look at the top half of the page, then set it down.

"Two defendants," she said. "One of them you still haven't laid eyes on."

"I've laid eyes on the name. His signature is on the contract, his fingerprint is on the IOU."

He Xiufen turned back to the board and flipped the dough over. "You put this one first. That's harsher than going after the money."

"The money is in item three."

"The money is in item three." She set the dough scraper down. "If he won't acknowledge the person, the two items behind it are empty."

"That's why I need to make the court look at that machine."

"Why were you rejected in arbitration? Read it."

She took out the Arbitration Award, turned to the last section, and read aloud: "The requested dispatch records and work badge issuance and return records are generated and kept by a system operated by a non-party entity."

"They said half of it for you: the thing is in someone else's hands." He Xiufen laid the dough over the edge of the board. "You have to write the other half yourself—whose hands it's in; where it lines up in this case; what happens if they refuse. Spell out all three, and the court will reach for it."

"I'll file it within the evidence submission deadline."

"Don't wait until the hearing." He Xiufen said. "The day of the hearing he'll be sitting across from you. Whatever you say then will be too late."

"That other leg," she said. "Public notice takes three months at best, and scheduling will push the hearing even further out. It won't get before the new year."

"Then don't waste those three months." He Xiufen knocked the dough scraper against the board. "Let the public notice wait on its own. You go chase down the machine yourself. Whichever leg lands first, lean on it."

Her pen tip paused over the hardcover notebook, and she added a line: December 5, filing fee ten yuan, fronted. The box below was empty. The word "fronted" was her own; no one told her to write it. How much money Ma Jianjun had in his pocket—she'd already worked that out that day at the hospital.

"How do you know those records are still there?" He Xiufen asked.

"The account is banned, but last year's orders can still be pulled up," she said. "He can delete what's inside, but he can't delete the books."

[Thud. He can delete the orders, but not the books.]

He Xiufen laid the rolled-out dough over the rim of the basin and said suddenly, "The platform actually has plenty of people."

"It's got dispatchers, customer service, hundreds of stations. The moment an order goes out, half the street is out running it." She clapped the flour from her hands. "But it doesn't have a single person under its name. Drag anyone in, and it says that person doesn't belong to it. The people are still the same people. Only the titles keep changing, round after round."

"Its top is clean."

"The cleaner the top, the filthier the bottom." He Xiufen picked up a bowl and headed upstairs. "Poke through that layer, and underneath it's all people."

After eight, Ma Jianjun came in, the water on his delivery box still not dry. He propped his electric scooter by the door and came in rubbing his hands.

"Auntie He, make it a bigger one."

"It's on the tab." He Xiufen poked her head out from the stove.

When the noodles arrived, he drank a couple of mouthfuls of broth before pulling out his phone.

"The station was purging people today." He turned the screen toward her. "The ones who didn't sign, they're being kicked out of the group one by one. Seven got kicked today."

"Who did the kicking?"

"The group owner is with the station." He scrolled down. "Look at this one. Sent this afternoon."

Pinned at the top of the screen was a line: This group is for riders to communicate among themselves and has nothing to do with the platform or the station.

She took the phone. Below it there was still another message, only a line of small text left: This message has been recalled.

"Who sent it?"

"Xiao Duan." He set his chopsticks down. "This morning he posted the customer-service recording in the group and told everyone to listen. By the afternoon, his account went gray again."

"Second time."

"Second time. Last time it was banned for twenty-some days. This time even he doesn't dare count." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "He says if it gets banned again, he'll go work construction. Paid by the day."

"What about Lao Song?"

"He left the group. Didn't go out today. His wife says he went to his sister's place."

The steam from the noodle broth rose into the light.

"One more thing." He turned off the phone screen. "Two people in the group who haven't been paid asked if this paper could be written up for them too."

"Wait until the Notice of Acceptance for this one comes through," she said. "Names one by one, papers one by one."

"Then I'll tell them that." He hesitated. "The name 'Brother Ma'—right now it sounds hollow to me."

"Why's that?"

"Last time they got banned along with me, and I couldn't even get a word in for them." He slid his hands back into his sleeves. "Once the money is in their hands, then I'll answer to that name."

He Xiufen picked up the pen and added a line in the hardcover notebook: Ma Jianjun, eight yuan. Then she set the pen down.

"Another thing," Ma Jianjun said. "The station called two people in today. Told them to register a license."

"What kind of license?"

"I didn't hear the whole thing." He thought for a moment. "They said once they register as sole proprietorships, the money can move. Whoever registers first gets paid first. The rest wait."

She copied "sole proprietorship" into the notebook and put a question mark after it.

[Thud. Titles pushed out, people pulled in.]

"That paper you filed today," he asked suddenly. "My name's on it, right?"

"First page, second line."

"Will the court read it?"

"On the hearing day. They'll read it twice."

He nodded, scraped the last two mouthfuls clean from the bowl, stood up, and fastened his delivery box. "I'll go finish that order first. You just get all the papers filed."

When he wheeled the scooter out, its headlight swayed twice at the mouth of the alley.

At 10:20, she smoothed the filing receipt flat on the table and held it down. Her phone lit up at the corner of the desk.

An unfamiliar number: the area code out front, eight digits after it.

—Complaint received. I'll play along.

She stared at those eight digits for a while, then got up and pulled the copy of the Lease Agreement from the document envelope. In the tenant's signature column, Sun Jianhua's name was written loosely, the last stroke sweeping downward, followed immediately by this same string of digits.

She had dialed this number last week. She remembered the woman's voice clearly: The number you have dialed has been disconnected.

She hit redial. The same voice in the earpiece. Hung up. Dialed again. Same.

A text that could go out, a number that couldn't be reached.

She took a screenshot and saved it in the topmost folder. She went over in her mind every place she had spoken these past few days: Wu Yuhua's window, the first floor of the Arbitration Office, Guo Jianguo's home, the three people in the alley. In every place, she had spoken only about what was on the paper. The paper was in her bag. The copies were in the court's cabinet, and not one had been delivered. The receipt in the other case was stamped "moved, new address unknown," and the public notice still hadn't been published.

She opened the notebook, wrote down the date, and copied that message word for word. Beneath it, she added the number, and after the number another line: This number can send, but it can't receive.

Downstairs, the light was still on. He Xiufen was clearing the last table of bowls, the clinks drifting up one after another. She turned her phone face down on the table, then after a while turned it back over and looked once more.