Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 41 : The Fourth Name in the Defendant Column

"Have you counted them out yet?"

He Xiufen set the enamel mug on the corner of the long table, and the bottom knocked against the wood. Three things lay spread across the table: a copy of the arbitration award, three pages printed from the Public Information Registry, and a photo of the door on the fifth floor. The photo had been taken last month. There were two signs on the door frame; the left one had a curled corner, and underneath it was pressed a gray mark.

"Four companies, one account."

"I asked about names."

"Four." Shen Zhixia moved the three printed registry pages under the lamp. "Four companies under Wang Yuhai's name. Sutong is active, Hengtong is marked 'Revoked but Not Deregistered,' and the other two are revoked. All four have the same registered phone number, and none of them go through. In the annual reports, insured employees are all listed as zero. Registered addresses are all that same door."

"How many signs on the door."

"Three—the platform's, Sutong's, Jianhua's." Her finger tapped the faint mark on the door frame in the photo. "The fourth one was taken down, completely. That mark is two fingers wider than the sign above it. The name underneath it was Hengtong."

He Xiufen unscrewed the mug lid, and steam rose. "At the first-instance table, who are you putting in the chairs."

"Hurricane Express, Sutong, Jianhua, and Hengtong."

"What gives Hengtong the right to sit there."

"Of the other three, two are dead and buried, and one is an empty shell Sun Jianhua nailed up just last month." She pushed the photo over. "That one's the only one that died halfway and stopped there. Its license is revoked, but the name still hangs on, and that door still has it written on it."

"Did you go through arbitration with it?"

"No."

"Put it in the defendant column, and the first thing the other side will ask about is exactly that." He Xiufen set the mug down on the table. "If you want to keep it, answer two questions first. First, what makes it a name on that door. Second, what makes it owe you money."

She pulled a pen from the holder and set it down again. The complaint lay open in front of her, the defendant column with four empty slots.

"I can't answer the second one," she said. "First I'm writing the first one into the paper."

"You can't answer it and you're still writing it."

"Write it, and let it answer for itself." She looked up. "If it's willing to come, then none of my four names are empty. If it doesn't come, then the names on that door are all the more reason for me to lay them out one by one for people to see."

He Xiufen picked up the mug and walked two steps toward the stairs, then stopped. "The more complete your line, the more squares get cut. Think those two sentences through in your gut first—one has to be findable on paper, the other has to come out of your own mouth."

She turned her phone over and tapped a voice message. Luo Cheng's voice squeezed out of the speaker, mixed with the wind from the street: "Hey, I went to the first floor of the arbitration office yesterday. I asked the woman at the window whether this booklet in my hand could be turned into money. She said we have to wait for it to take effect."

"How did you answer him?" He Xiufen asked from the stairway.

"I didn't. He was out on the road by six this morning."

"You asked in the wrong place, and so did he." He Xiufen rested one hand on the stair rail. "That booklet is paper. Paper lying in a drawer won't turn into money by itself. It takes the court's own ruling to come down, and after it's decided, someone still has to redeem it."

The wooden stairs creaked step by step as she went down.

Shen Zhixia sat back at the table and filled in the defendant column line by line.

Defendant 1: Hurricane Express (Jiangzhou) Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Defendant 2: Jiangzhou Sutong Delivery Service Co., Ltd.

Defendant 3: Jianhua Delivery Service Department, Operator: Sun Jianhua.

Defendant 4: Jiangzhou Hengtong Freight Service Co., Ltd.

She copied the addresses from the registry pages. When the four lines were done, she counted them twice. The litigation claims were written after that, three items: 1. Confirm that an employment relationship exists between the twenty plaintiffs and Defendant 1; 2. Order the four defendants to jointly pay the remuneration and overtime deductions listed in the schedule to the arbitration award; 3. The litigation costs in this case shall be borne by the defendants.

After item two, she had to fill in an amount. She added up the twenty rows in the schedule twice. Only when the total matched the settlement sheet on the recovery disk did she write the number down.

He Xiufen carried a bowl of noodles up and set it by her hand. "Put the money in item two."

"It doesn't matter which item it's in."

"Who you're writing it to is what matters." He Xiufen wiped a hand on her apron. "Three of those four can't produce a cent. You take your time doing the math."

She pulled up Sutong's registry page to copy Defendant 2's address. At the very top there was an extra line she hadn't seen last time.

Simplified Deregistration Notice. Notice period: January 2 to January 22.

Her pen lifted from the paper. She clicked on Jianhua's page, and that page had the same line, with the exact same dates.

She wrote the two dates along the edge of the hardcover notebook and drew a horizontal line between them. When those two companies posted the notice, that booklet hadn't yet gone into her bag.

[Thud. The money is still on paper, and someone is already moving the table.]

He Xiufen leaned in for a look at the screen, then nudged the bowl toward her.

"Simplified deregistration is for companies with no debts," He Xiufen said. "If there's nothing written on the IOU, they can go. If there's writing, they can't. It's published for twenty days, and if no one says a word, it dies clean—cleaner than a revocation—and the accounts get buried along with it."

"The words saying they owe money are written in the schedule to the arbitration award." She opened the award to the twenty rows. "It was only when I read to the last line that I found the names of these two companies."

"That booklet belongs to the arbitration office," He Xiufen said. "If it wants to go down the 'simplified' road, it's counting on no one stepping up to speak on the public notice page."

"I'll speak."

"Just speaking isn't enough." He Xiufen moved the noodle soup toward her. "First file the complaint, then talk when you get back. Get both things done today."

She carried the mug downstairs.

Halfway through the noodles, she glanced at her watch and pushed the bowl away.

Ten o'clock, the District People's Court filing hall. The number machine spat out a slip: A043.

She had arranged the materials three times the night before: one original complaint, four copies, the evidence list, twenty powers of attorney, the letter of recommendation, the arbitration award, the proof of service, and copies of those three registry pages and the recovered documents.

Behind the window sat a man in his forties, an enamel cup by his hand with its lid screwed on. He flipped to the parties page. The tip of his pen landed on the defendant column and moved down line by line.

"Four defendants."

"Four."

"Copies?"

"Four."

He reached the last line, and the pen tip didn't lift. "Jiangzhou Hengtong Freight Service Co., Ltd. This one's status says 'Revoked but Not Deregistered.'"

"Yes."

"In this case, did you go through arbitration with it?"

"No."

He set the pen down and looked up at her.

"I know this point will get bitten into," she said.

"Then why write it."

"That door has had four signs on it altogether." She pulled the photo out of the document folder and passed one corner through the window. "There are three hanging now. The fourth has been taken down. I want these four names to land on one piece of paper, not in my own notebook."

He looked at the photo for two seconds and pushed it back.

"Filing fee, ten yuan." He pulled out a receipt, his pen pausing over the date box. "Submit one more representative election form. The one from the arbitration case belongs to the arbitration case."

"I'll make it up within ten days."

"There's one more thing." From the innermost part of the folder she pulled out another page, an Application for Joint Trial. "The case this court accepted on December 5—plaintiff Ma Jianjun, two defendants. That case and this one involve the same people and the same matter. I request that they be tried together at one table."

He took it, read two lines, and laid it on top of the complaint. "Consolidation isn't approved at this window. I'll attach it to the file and send it up."

The stamp came down, and the papers were pushed out.

She counted out two five-yuan notes, flattened them, and slid them through. The receipt she folded into thirds and tucked into the innermost layer of the document folder.

[Thud. The four names went in. The money is still outside the door.]

Outside the hall, the line below the steps still bent around the flowerbed. When the wind passed, all the paper corners flew up, and each person was holding one down. She stood watching for two seconds, then pinched the zipper opening of the document folder twice.

While waiting for the bus, she sent Deng Wei a message: For first instance, we need to elect a representative again, and the election form has to be signed all over again, twenty names. He replied quickly: Tomorrow morning, after the cold storage shift ends.

In the afternoon, back at the office, she took care of the online matter.

It took her more than ten minutes to find that entry point. The page read: An objector shall state that it has a creditor-debtor relationship with the company and shall be responsible for the truthfulness of the content.

In the reason field she wrote four lines: The objected party owes an outstanding debt to the twenty persons on this objector's side. The amount has been determined by arbitration and remains unpaid to this day. We request that, in accordance with the law, its simplified deregistration not be approved.

She uploaded three attachments: the first page of the arbitration award, the schedule, and a screenshot of the public notice. Submit. The page came back with a line: Objection submitted.

She screenshotted the confirmation page, printed it, and clipped it to the very front of the case file.

[Thud. Twenty days is enough for someone to take a sign down completely.]

"Did you post it?" He Xiufen asked from downstairs.

"Posted it."

"The person handling it on their end will see it today." The sound of water downstairs stopped. "If it still wants to take this road, it'll have to find another way to walk it."

On the afternoon of January 8, after three, the landline downstairs rang. He Xiufen picked it up, listened briefly, and called her name upstairs.

"Court."

She went down. The Case Filing Division clerk spoke quickly: Defendant 1 had filed two documents the day before, one defense statement and one application, and she should come pick up the copies.

"I'll go right over."

"Someone will be there until four."

By the time she got back with the copies, it was already dark. The desk lamp was on over the long table upstairs. Two pages lay side by side: one headed Civil Defense Statement, the other Application to Dismiss the Lawsuit.

In the signature block were two lines: Hengzheng Law Firm, Lu Jibai, Lü Hang.

Item one: There is no employment relationship between the respondent and the plaintiffs, nor is the respondent the subject liable for the alleged unpaid wages. In this case, listing the respondent as a defendant means the party is not proper. We request that the lawsuit against the respondent be dismissed in accordance with law.

Item two: Defendant 4, Jiangzhou Hengtong Freight Service Co., Ltd., has had its business license revoked and did not participate in the arbitration proceedings in this case. The plaintiffs' suit against it was brought without first going through arbitration. We request that the court rule, in accordance with law, to dismiss the claim against Defendant 4.

She read it twice. In the entire document, the word "logs" never once appeared. "Dispatch" never appeared. "Account" never appeared. The first round was all on the defendant column.

[Thud. In the first round, he goes first for the legs of your table.]

She turned to a new page in the hardcover notebook and wrote at the top: First Trial Round: The Defendant Column. Below that, on a new line, she wrote: What makes it owe money.

Just then, the phone at the corner of the desk lit up. The number was the one in the file.

—I wrote item two.

She stared at it for a few seconds, then copied those six words into the hardcover notebook, underneath those two lines.

He Xiufen came up to collect the bowl, her eyes pausing on the notebook.

"Whichever one he admits to writing, that's the one you have to answer yourself."

"I know."

"Knowing doesn't count." He Xiufen carried the bowl toward the stairs. "Writing it on paper does."

The rolling shutter downstairs clanged once, the metal shaking twice. She arranged the other side's two pages side by side, the hardcover notebook open by her right hand. The four names were still on the paper, from the first to the fourth, not one line missing. The first thing tomorrow was to find one sentence for the fourth name—a sentence she could say out loud in court.