Beijing Court Applies Urban Standards to Calculate Compensation Award for Death of Migrant

A Beijing intermediate court overturned a lower court decision and applied urban standards to calculate the death compensation award for a migrant killed in a traffic accident, according to an October 24, 2007 article carried on the People’s Net website.

Families of long-term migrants living in Chinese urban areas, but who still have rural hukou (household registration) status, often receive significantly less compensation than families of corresponding urban hukou holders killed in similar (or the same) accident. The legal basis for this discriminatory treatment lies in a 2003 judicial interpretation by the Supreme People's Court, but it reflects a deeper set of institutional biases that link a range of legal rights and public benefits to individuals' hukou identification rather than their actual place of residence. [For more information, see the topic paper of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China regarding the Chinese hukou system.]

The Beijing decision is an example of at least one court's willingness to flexibly apply relevant legal standards in practice, depart from a bright-line test based on hukou identification, and use higher urban compensation standards to ensure equitable death compensation awards for the families of long-term migrants living in urban areas. 

In October 2006, Tao Hongquan, a migrant from Jiangxi province, was killed in a traffic collision when the three-wheeled motorcycle he was driving collided with a truck. The lower court found that both Tao and the truck driver collectively bore responsibility for the collision, but refused Tao’s family demand that the court apply urban compensation standards for the purpose of calculating the death compensation award. The lower court based its' decision on Tao's status as a migrant lacking a Beijing hukou and his "lack of a fixed place of employment, residence, and source of income." Applying compensation standards for rural residents, the court derived a death award of 70,000 yuan ($9,300 US).

On appeal, Tao's lawyers argued that the fact that Tao had moved from Jiangxi to Beijing in 1995, had continuously lived in rental property in Beijing, and had obtained a Beijing temporary residence permit (zanzhuzheng) meant that compensation for his death should be calculated according to urban standards.

The Number 2 Intermediate People's Court (IPC) of Beijing reversed the lower court decision. It found that Tao's registration as a temporary resident meant that Tao's regular place of residence and his primary source of income was in Beijing, and that urban compensation standards should consequently apply. Reversing the lower court's damage award, the IPC granted Tao's family a death compensation award of 170,000 yuan ($22,500 US).

The Beijing court decision appears to depart from a strict bright-line test based on hukou identification for the purpose of determining whether urban or rural compensation standards should apply. The logic of the case would appear to expand the urban compensation standards to (at least) all migrants who possess a temporary residence permit. 

The Supreme People's Court is currently considering issuing a judicial interpretation that would address discrepancies between rural and urban hukou holders in death compensation awards.  No such decision has yet issued.