A fire broke out at Tainan's Floating Water Fish Soup Shop and affected a handheld drink shop. The court ordered the stall owner responsible for the incident to pay NT$402,316 in compensation.

A fire at Tainan's Floating Water Fish Soup Shop affected hand-cranked drinks, and the insurance company sued for more than NT$630,000 in subrogation. The judge determined that the old equipment could not be counted as new decoration, and after re-depreciation, ordered the vendor responsible for the accident to compensate the vendor 402,316 yuan. (Photo by reporter Wang Jie)

A fire broke out at a floating fish soup shop in Tainan and spread to an adjacent hand-crank tea shop. After the insurance company settled the claim, it turned to the stall responsible for the incident and asked for more than 630,000 yuan in compensation. After the trial, the Tainan District Court held that some of the damaged items could not be judged to be newly purchased items, and ordered the owner of the fish soup shop named Wang to pay 402,316 yuan in compensation.

In June of the year before last, a gas leak caused a fire at the Floating Fish Soup Shop run by the Queen, which spread to the hand-held drink shop owned by Lin next door, causing damage to the ceiling and business equipment. The insurance company stated that the tea shop had just been renovated a few months before the fire, and it had already settled a claim of NT$926,830 as agreed. The insurance company then deducted part of the depreciation and sought compensation from the princess for property and business losses.

The princess retorted in court, emphasizing that the fire was quickly brought under control and the actual impact on the tea shop was not large. She pointed out that the tea shop was formerly a chain franchise store and had been operating locally for more than 10 years. Although the owner surnamed Lin changed to a self-operated brand in February last year, he only changed the external signboard and the decoration of the sales area. The light partitions, water and electricity pipelines and hardware facilities in the store were not rebuilt at all.

The princess believes that it is very unreasonable for the insurance company to calculate depreciation expenses for a large number of old equipment based on new standards, and some items that are far away from fire sources are also included in the claim list. She argued that the cost of old equipment that exceeded the statutory service life should be deducted in order to comply with the spirit of actual damage compensation. She refused to accept the full bill and was unwilling to bear the full maintenance fee.

The judge reviewed the records and confirmed that the tea shop's equipment was damaged due to watering during disaster relief. However, a comparison of the photos revealed that except for signs of heavy decoration in the sales area, the rest of the equipment could not be proven to be newly purchased. Most of the equipment had exceeded the legal service life and should be calculated as residual value. In addition, the side door and network sharer could not be proven to be related to the fire alarm and were removed. After calculating the actual depreciation, the reasonable compensation was determined to be 402,316 yuan.