Case Overview
In the case of a retrial dispute between the applicant Liu Pu and the Shaanxi Branch of the Bank of Communications Co., Ltd., the defendants of the original trial, Shaanxi Mingtai Engineering Construction Co., Ltd., Shaanxi Bingtai Mining Co., Ltd., Xi'an Xinyong Mining Co., Ltd., Liu Bingqiang, and Li Hailan, the applicant, applied to the Supreme Court for a retrial in the (2020) Shaanxi Minzhong No. 872 Civil Judgment.
Retrial of the applicant's claims
Liu Pu did not recognize the authenticity of the Guarantee Contract provided by the Shaanxi Branch of the Bank of Communications, and the court of first instance did not handle Liu Pu's request for handwriting appraisal during the trial, which was unclear about the facts of this part and was a procedural violation.
The original "Guarantee Contract" submitted by the Shaanxi Branch of the Bank of Communications had two kinds of inconsistencies between handwriting and machine playing, and Liu Pu did not hold the contract as agreed in the contract, and did not express his intention to sign the "Guarantee Contract" to provide guarantee.
The guarantee contract was signed on June 30, 2016, when Liu Pu was working abroad and not in Xi'an. The signature of Liu Pu on the "Guarantee Contract" provided by the Shaanxi Branch of the Bank of Communications and the Xitou Company was not signed by himself, and Liu Pu proposed a handwriting appraisal in the lawsuit, but Liu Pu did not receive a notice from the appraisal agency.
The court of first instance did not entrust an appraisal institution to conduct an appraisal of the above handwriting and directly adjudicated, and the trial procedure was illegal.
The court of second instance also did not conduct an appraisal of the handwriting and directly upheld the first-instance judgment, which was erroneous. Liu Pu is now applying for an appraisal of the handwriting on the Guarantee Contract.
Liu Pu applied for a retrial in accordance with the provisions of The Second Paragraph of Article 200 of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China.
The Supreme People's Court held
The court of second instance had ascertained that although Liu Pu's facts and reasons in the appeal were partially related to his non-assumption of civil liability in this case, he did not object to the judgment of the first-instance judgment that he should bear the guarantee liability in the appeal request, nor did he pay the appeal fee for the subject matter of the lawsuit.
After the court of second instance explained to him, Liu Pu still did not submit a written request for an increase in appeal and pay the corresponding litigation costs within the time limit specified by the court of second instance, so it was not improper for the court of second instance not to hear this issue.
Since the purpose of Liu Pu's application for appraisal on his handwriting was to negate his guarantee liability, and because Liu Pu's aforementioned reasons were not within the scope of the second-instance trial of this case, the court of second instance did not necessarily find that his application was correct.
When Liu Pu applied for retrial, he applied to this court for appraisal of the authenticity of the signature on the "Guarantee Contract", and in accordance with article 399 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, which stipulates that "during the period of reviewing the application for retrial, if the applicant for retrial applies to the people's court to entrust an appraisal or inquest, the people's court will not approve it", this court will not approve it.
The result of the referee
Liu Pu's application for retrial was rejected.