Bullying case code name confusion, summary court miscarriage of justice, Tainan District Court revokes original verdict and remands for retrial

A child was bullied at school, and the parents filed a lawsuit, but the school could not provide personal information. As a result, the defendant and witness were both codenamed "ABCD". The summary court could not distinguish between them and did not hold a hearing. It presumed that the parents had sued the witnesses without authorization, and sentenced the parents to abuse the case and fined them NT$30,000. The Tainan District Court found major flaws, discarded the original judgment and remanded the case for a new trial.

The boy's mother claimed that the child was kicked and injured by four classmates at school. The school was unable to provide a list of students because it was protecting underage students. Therefore, she named the defendants A, B, C, and D in the complaint and sought compensation of NT$92,900. Unexpectedly, in the bullying investigation report provided by the school, A, B, C, and D were used instead of "witnesses."

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During the trial in the Liuying Summary Court, there was no court debate and no opportunity for the parents to explain the code name. The school only relied on a letter from the school stating that the code name was an eyewitness, so it was deemed that the mother had complained. It also accused her of malicious prosecution and sentenced her to a fine of 30,000 yuan.

After the mother appealed, the Collegiate Court of the Southern District Court held that the mother’s complaint stated that the target of the lawsuit was the student who kicked and injured her child. When the school reminded that the code name in the report was only a witness, the summary court judge should have confirmed the identity. However, the original trial did not have a debate and made an "out-of-litigation ruling."

In civil litigation, there is a very important concept. It is commonly known in the legal circles as the "principle of no suit or no action", which is based on the provisions of Article 388 of the Civil Procedure Law. In other words, the judge can only judge the case based on the "object" and "request" put forward by the plaintiff in the complaint. If the judge arbitrarily changes or adds matters that the plaintiff has not requested, it is called "extra-litigation refereeing."

Looking back at this bullying case, the mother wanted to sue the "student who kicked" and not the "witnesses". However, the summary court judge made an arbitrary judgment based on the fact that the parents wanted to sue the witnesses, which violated the norms of the Civil Procedure Law.

The collegial panel of the second instance emphasized that the extra-litigation judgment of the original trial had major flaws, abandoned the original judgment, and sent the case back to Liuying Summary Court for a new trial.