I have always been reluctant to comment on cases without clear conclusions. A quick search shows that the last time I wrote about such a topic was back in 2011 (Litigants Should Not Attack Courts and Judges as a Way to Vent After Losing a Case). The reason is simple: I am neither a party to the case nor a case-handling officer, so my analysis of the case is inevitably biased. Relying on one-sided information or fragmented truths from the internet makes it impossible to conduct an objective analysis, and I can only be led astray by the information provider.
The very few cases that can be discussed are inevitably those with extraordinary circumstances, such as the recent shocking incident in Henan, which is highly unusual.
Basic Facts of the Incident
The Crime
On the morning of August 12, the Yancheng District Court issued a notice regarding the tragic murder of Judge Wang Jiajia in the line of duty. The notice stated that on the evening of the 7th, Wang Jiajia, the deputy chief judge of the court’s case filing division and a first-level judge, was brutally murdered by the suspect, Dang Moumou, in an act of revenge. According to the public security authorities’ investigation, the perpetrator was Dang Moumou (male, 50 years old, a resident of Luohe City, unmarried), the plaintiff in a road traffic accident compensation case handled by Judge Wang Jiajia. At around 3 a.m. on the 8th, the public security authorities arrested Dang Moumou at his home. At the time of his arrest, Dang had already attempted suicide by poisoning and was in a coma. After being treated at the hospital, he was no longer in critical condition. The case is still under further investigation. The notice revealed that Dang Moumou had filed a lawsuit with the Yancheng District Court on July 4 over a traffic accident that occurred on April 4 of this year, which was handled by Judge Wang Jiajia. After the verdict, Dang Moumou was dissatisfied that Judge Wang Jiajia did not fully support his claims. Instead of seeking resolution through legal channels, Dang Moumou, at around 6 p.m. on August 7, entered the underground garage of Judge Wang Jiajia’s residential complex with a weapon, waiting for an opportunity to commit the crime.
The Original Case
On April 4, 2024, Dang Moumou’s electric bicycle (purchased in 2021 for 1,800 yuan) collided with a small passenger vehicle driven by Li Moumou, resulting in minor injuries to Dang’s left ankle and left wrist. The traffic police determined that Li Moumou was fully responsible for the accident, while Dang Moumou bore no responsibility. After failing to reach a settlement, Dang Moumou filed a lawsuit with the court on July 4, 2024, demanding that the defendant, Li Moumou, and the property insurance company Li had insured with compensate him for various losses totaling 18,832.93 yuan, including medical expenses. Upon Dang Moumou’s request, the local judicial bureau assigned him a legal aid lawyer. The case was handled by Judge Wang Jiajia. After a public trial, based on the scope of losses confirmed by Dang Moumou on the traffic accident liability determination form and the evidence provided by both parties, the court fully supported Dang’s claims for medical expenses and rescue costs. However, since Dang had not actually been hospitalized for the last 14 days of his 29-day hospital stay, and the doctor had only prescribed one box of oral painkillers and three boxes of external pain relief patches, the court, considering the traffic police’s determination that Dang’s injuries were minor and the defendant’s defense, decided to calculate the hospitalization meal allowance, nutrition fees, nursing fees, lost wages, and transportation fees based on 15 days. Other property loss claims that lacked evidence were not supported. On July 23, the court ruled that the property insurance company should compensate Dang Moumou 9,384.89 yuan within the compulsory traffic insurance liability limit.
Unusual Factors
The Disparity Between the Amount in Dispute and the Murder Outcome
The most striking aspect of the original case is the amount of money involved. According to online rumors, the difference is generally between 9,000 and 12,000 yuan, with a maximum difference of 9,000 to 18,000 yuan. In other words, the litigant believed that the judge had failed to support his claim by 3,000 to 9,000 yuan, leading him to vent his anger by murdering the judge.
Based on the local per capita income, in 2023, the per capita disposable income of all residents in Luohe was 31,636 yuan, while that of rural residents was 23,036 yuan. The difference in the amount in dispute represents approximately 10-30% of an individual’s annual income. If the litigant was a rural resident, the difference would account for 13-39% of his annual income.
The Disparity in the Identities of the Parties Involved
The original case was an ordinary civil lawsuit. According to the general principles of civil litigation, the plaintiff and defendant are supposed to have equal status in the lawsuit. However, in practice, the status of the parties in many civil litigation cases is often unequal due to differences in social status. This issue has long been recognized in practice. For example, in labor disputes, the law directly favors protecting workers. In current road traffic accident personal injury compensation disputes, there is also a need to provide special protection to victims. This is because, in most traffic accident cases, the actual disputing parties are the victim and the insurance company, and it is well known that the vast majority of insurance companies in China are state-owned mega-corporations.
I have always believed that China’s legal theory on victim compensation is too conservative. In civil cases, it is believed that compensation should strictly correspond to the loss, while in criminal cases, it is believed that the state’s punishment of the perpetrator can partially compensate the victim’s loss, leaving almost no room for punitive damages. This conservative view essentially inflicts secondary harm on victims, especially in traffic accident cases, where this issue is particularly pronounced.
The Disparity Between Public Opinion and Official Narratives After the Incident
The reason this case of a judge being murdered continues to attract public attention is largely due to the post-incident public opinion, which shows a significant gap between the official statements and the public sentiment.
Generally, after most criminal cases occur, official statements are extremely cautious, simplifying the content as much as possible to prevent sensitive groups from identifying with the perpetrator. However, in this case, the judge’s court directly issued the notice, using extensive language to create the impression of a biased litigant maliciously murdering a perfect judge. At the same time, the official press release further portrayed the judge as an idealized social elite figure. These actions undoubtedly challenged the sensitive nerves of the general proletariat.
Personal Views
As a fellow legal professional, I sympathize with the judge’s plight. No one wants to encounter such incidents or people in their work. However, it must be noted that the occurrence of such incidents and individuals is not entirely unrelated to the legal profession.
Traffic Accident Compensation Itself is Difficult to Achieve Fairness and Justice
In general, the liability in traffic accident cases is determined by administrative authorities. Once the liability is determined, both parties are already aware of the likely outcome. The compensation amount for traffic accidents is also calculated formulaically, requiring only the input of relevant parameters to arrive at the amount.
For ordinary Chinese people, the fairness of the law lies in its certainty. A clear crime corresponds to a clear sentence, and a clear loss corresponds to a clear compensation amount. Anyone who breaks this rule undermines the authority of the law in their eyes.
However, in traffic accident compensation, due to the influence of the parties’ ability to provide evidence, a clear loss result often does not correspond to a definite compensation amount, and there is usually a significant margin of error. Moreover, this margin of error often follows the same pattern: downward adjustment.
In traffic accident compensation, the compensation received by the victim is, in most cases, lower than the legally determined amount, and it is almost impossible to receive compensation higher than the statutory amount. In many cases, this downward adjustment is quite drastic, with victims often having to concede 30-50% or more to receive compensation.
Another obvious fact is that the lower the social status of the victim and the weaker their ability to provide evidence, the lower their bargaining power in traffic accidents, and the greater the concessions they have to make. Unless it is a fatal traffic accident where the victim’s family insists on pursuing the case, or the suspect increases compensation to obtain a “letter of understanding.”
The Murky Relationship Between Courts and Insurance Associations
Due to the relatively straightforward nature of traffic accident cases, courts tend to prefer mediation as a means of resolution. In reality, many local courts directly hire insurance association personnel to act as mediators in traffic accident dispute mediation. The road traffic accident compensation dispute handling centers established in various places are almost always staffed by insurance association personnel who are stationed there to participate in mediation. Some courts also enter into direct cooperation agreements with insurance companies during property preservation and execution phases. To the outside world, it appears that courts indeed have an unclear relationship with the insurance industry.
The reason for this lies in China’s unique national conditions. On the one hand, although insurance associations are industry associations managed by the National Financial Regulatory Administration (formerly the China Insurance Regulatory Commission) and have a certain administrative level, making them appear as official organizations with some regulatory power over insurance companies, it is well known that these associations primarily serve the interests of the insurance industry and are unlikely to favor ordinary citizens in insurance claims. On the other hand, the functions of Chinese courts have expanded beyond traditional adjudication work, with pre-litigation mediation institutions and post-litigation execution work being led by courts. These mediation and execution tasks come with KPI assessment pressures, making it necessary for courts to cooperate with insurance institutions. Especially when dealing with national insurance institutions, which often have high administrative levels and influence, local courts appear relatively weak. To achieve mediation and execution goals, courts usually need to establish good cooperative relationships with insurance companies to resolve issues.
As a result, the litigation status of traffic accident victims and insurance institutions becomes even more unequal.
Professional Ethics Issues of Lawyers in Traffic Accident Disputes
In my work, I have repeatedly focused on the issue of lawyer representation in traffic accident disputes, and there are many abnormal phenomena. A typical problem is that traffic accident cases are monopolized by a small number of specialized lawyers. These lawyers often have connections with traffic police, insurance companies, hospitals, appraisal agencies, and courts, allowing them to learn about cases as soon as they occur, secure representation rights, and use illegal means to obtain far higher fees than in ordinary civil cases. In some cases, the litigant is still lying in a hospital bed when the lawyer buys out the compensation, with the lawyer advancing the compensation and then using illegal means to fabricate a higher disability level to obtain more compensation. In other cases, litigants are persuaded to sign blank agreements, with lawyers introducing small loan companies to advance medical expenses and later using illegal means to extract exorbitant fees from the compensation. I have even seen cases where lawyers embezzled or misappropriated the entire compensation for traffic accident fatalities. In my own family, a government-appointed legal aid lawyer is currently failing to fulfill their duty of diligence, instead trying to trick the litigant into signing a contingency fee agreement.
Ethical Lawyers. In practice, ethical lawyers handling traffic accident cases typically calculate a precise compensation amount for the victim based on legal provisions and existing evidence. On the one hand, this reduces the judge’s workload and demonstrates the lawyer’s professionalism; on the other hand, it is also a responsible approach to the client. In such cases, the final judgment usually does not differ significantly from the claimed amount.
Unethical Lawyers. However, some less ethical lawyers tend to file claims for inflated amounts. They are well aware that certain compensation items or amounts are unlikely to be supported by the court but still include them in the claim. On the one hand, these lawyers easily gain the litigant’s trust, making them believe that the lawyer is highly capable and can secure more compensation; on the other hand, even if the court’s final judgment differs significantly from the claimed amount, they can shift all the blame to the court and the judge.
But let’s be honest, faced with these two types of lawyers, most litigants would likely choose the latter. If the amount calculated by an ethical lawyer is fully supported by the court, the litigant may naturally wonder: could more compensation items have been included and supported by the court? It’s like haggling in a market—if the seller accepts your initial offer, you feel like you’ve been shortchanged. After unethical lawyers handle a case, many litigants still feel grateful, believing that the lawyer did their best to help them, and that it was only due to the court’s incompetence that they didn’t receive higher compensation.
Thus, the lawyer successfully redirects the conflict toward the court.
Some Judges Risk Becoming Detached from the Public
Around this time last year, I spent a month at a local court and wrote a brief blog post about it: 11 Years Later, Returning to Work at the Court Again (Temporarily). In it, I mentioned a particular observation:
The work environment of courts is often more isolated. Due to the relative independence of court work, court personnel have limited interaction with other government departments and members of society. Their perspectives and methods of solving problems may differ from those of the public, leading to a certain degree of social dysfunction. For example, during this experience, we found that some judges were sued by their neighbors because they couldn’t effectively handle neighborhood disputes. Others lacked social experience in dealing with simple litigation cases arising from conflicts in family, school, or workplace settings due to their limited participation in social activities. Additionally, some young judges assumed judicial positions in their early twenties, lacking personal experience in relationships, marriage, and divorce, yet they had to mediate divorce cases for others, leading to complaints from the parties involved.
This time, public opinion about the judiciary has evolved in a similar direction. With the implementation of the judge quota system and the trend toward judicial elitism, many judges have gradually become detached from the public in their lives and work. Yet, they still see themselves as embodiments of fairness and justice, often displaying a sense of superiority in their interactions. Some critics have labeled them as the new petite bourgeoisie, and this is not entirely without merit.
If officials do not serve the people, they might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes. The pursuit of fairness and justice should keep pace with the times and align with the thoughts and aspirations of the millions of ordinary people in the same era. While a case can be considered properly adjudicated as long as it is decided according to the law, and the judge can avoid liability, if the significance of a judge’s work is limited to meeting the minimum moral requirement of ruling according to the law, it is undoubtedly a tragedy. From this perspective, the original case in this incident can be seen as a typical example of the legal effect being disconnected from the political and social effects.
In conclusion, this incident is a deeply regrettable tragedy in the judicial process. An 80s-born judge was murdered by a litigant over a minor case, and a 70s-born litigant was driven to destruction by a sudden traffic accident and a lost lawsuit—both of which could have been avoided. Let us hope this is just an isolated case.