Recently, an incident in Qidong County, Hengyang, Hunan where an elderly person died after resting in a shop has attracted continuous attention from the public.
According to media reports, on August 17th, an elderly person felt unwell and went to a local karate dojo to rest. Shortly after, he lost consciousness. The owner, Xiao Aihua, noticed something unusual and stepped forward to help the elderly person. Together with others, they called for an ambulance. The elderly person was taken to the hospital but unfortunately passed away there.
After that, the family of the elderly man demanded 100,000 yuan from the store. After two attempts of mediation by the police station, the store finally paid 19,000 yuan to the family of the deceased. Latest public information shows that the relevant departments have confirmed that Xiao Aihua was not at fault and bears no legal responsibility. The 19,000 yuan was considered a one-time assistance given by the store out of humanitarian considerations, rather than compensation for any liability.
After the incident became viral online, a familiar statement emerged: If such a thing happened in Japan, the outcome would likely be the opposite – “In Japan, some people might attempt suicide by jumping off tracks, and the railway company wouldn’t only fail to compensate the family members, but would also send them a huge bill.”
This statement is not completely unfounded, but when compared directly with the Hengyang incident, it still needs careful consideration.
"Suicide on the tracks, bereaved families will have to pay 1 billion yen to the railroad company," is a long-circulated urban legend in Japanese society.
As early as 2008, Japanese media J-CAST conducted an investigation on this matter under the title "Will the Survivors of 'Track-Switch Suicide' Be Compensated with 100 Million Yen? Is It a Urban Legend?" At that time, JR East and Tobu Railway were unwilling to disclose the specific compensation policies and individual case amounts. Keikimin Express Railway, in a rare instance, revealed that for general personal accidents, the company suffers losses of approximately 2 million yen per case. The company generally seeks compensation, but at that time, "the actual amount requested was no more than 1 million yen." This is far from the claim of "100 million yen" that often appears online.
By 2013, JR East Japan still faced the same issues and stated that whether to claim compensation or not depended on the specific circumstances. It was not guaranteed that compensation would be paid to the victims or their survivors in case of a personal accident. The railway company could calculate many types of losses: costs for repairing vehicles and station facilities, business losses caused by train cancellations, refunds for special express train tickets, compensation payments to other railway companies for alternative transportation, costs associated with arranging public transportation, taxis, and accommodation when necessary, as well as labor costs such as overtime work by employees and loss of rest days due to accident handling. If the accident occurred at major city hub stations during rush hours, the losses would naturally increase further.
Therefore, there indeed exists a system and practice in Japan where railway companies hold liability claims against those who cross the tracks. However, there is no so-called 'unified compensation rate' for crossing the tracks, nor is there a rule that stipulates a fixed compensation of 100 million yen for each suicide attempt.
So, why can the railway company claim compensation?
Firstly, what is commonly referred to as 'jump-line suicide' refers to an act where a person voluntarily enters a railway line. If an adult with capacity for responsibility causes damage to the railway company through intent or negligence, the liability for infringement stipulated in Article 709 of the Japanese Civil Code may be established.
Secondly, the fact that a suicide victim has died does not mean that all property and debts associated with their life are eliminated. In accordance with the law, heirs who inherit the property will generally inherit both the rights and debts associated with it. Therefore, in reality, what often happens is that the suicide victim’s actions lead to claims for damages, and these debts become part of the inheritance. The heirs, through inheritance, become the holders of these debts.
In other words, family members do not pay compensation because they are ‘his wife or children’, but because they have the legal status of ‘heirs’. If they renounce inheritance according to the law, in principle, they will not inherit this debt. Japanese media also pointed out this point when discussing claims related to railway suicides.
These two premises—that the deceased had actionable behavior, and that the heirs inherited his debts—are precisely the key to understanding what is known as “Japanese bye-law compensation.”
In the cases of railway claims in Japan over the past decade or so, one of the most famous cases actually illustrates why it is not possible to simply explain all fatal accidents by assuming that they were caused by “railway accidents.”
In 2007, a 91-year-old elderly woman with severe Alzheimer's disease in Aichi Prefecture went out alone without the knowledge of her family. She opened the fence at the end of the platform and entered the railway line, where she was struck by a train and died. The accident caused delays and alternative transportation arrangements, resulting in losses for JR East. Consequently, JR East claimed 7,197,740 yen from the elderly woman's wife and eldest son.
The first-instance judgment by the Nagoya District Court supported JR East’s request, ordering the wife and eldest son to pay approximately 7.2 million yen in compensation. The second-instance judgment by the Nagoya High Court dismissed the eldest son’s responsibility, determining that only the wife was liable, and reducing the compensation amount to approximately 3.59 million yen. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court of Japan.
On March 1, 2016, the Supreme Court ultimately overturned the judgment that family members were responsible, resulting in JR Tōkai's defeat.
One fact that is often overlooked here is that this case was not in the usual sense of “the deceased owes money to the railway company, and the debt is inherited by the family members”.
According to Sasaki Taya, a lawyer at the Dongchō Legal Firm, due to the elderly person suffering from severe cognitive impairment, they are considered incapable of bearing responsibility for their own actions under civil law. According to Article 713 of the Japanese Civil Code, such “incapacitated persons” are not generally liable for their own acts of infringement. This means that JR East did not claim that the elderly person owed 7.2 million yen, and that their wife and children inherited this debt.
JR's route is different: Article 714 of the Civil Code states that under certain conditions, the person responsible for supervising an incapacitated person may be liable for damage caused by them. Therefore, what the case truly disputes is whether the wife and eldest son qualify as "supervision duty holders" in the legal sense of the word, or at least persons who could be considered equivalent to supervision duty holders.
The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that simply being a wife or son does not automatically entail a supervisory responsibility towards third parties. At the time, the wife was already 85 years old, and she also ‘needed companionship’; the eldest son lived in Yokohama for a long time and worked in Tokyo, having not lived with his father for over 20 years. In reality, neither of them was in a position to prevent the elderly from causing harm to third parties, and therefore they should not bear liability for compensation within the meaning of Article 714.
So, this famous case actually answers the question of “whether the patient’s family should be responsible for any trouble caused by the patient”. It doesn’t simply state that “if anyone dies while entering a railway line, the family will definitely have to pay compensation”.
"Using it to prove that 'in Japan, death of a person must mean that their family will take over the business' is obviously simplifying legal relationships."
What is truly worth comparing with Japan in the Hengyang incident is not the railway compensation issue, but another law: when an ordinary person sees a stranger suddenly fall to the ground and intervenes to help, if they fail to save the person, should they be held responsible for the outcome?
Japan currently does not have a law like the so-called "Good Samaritan Law" that is specifically enacted by each state in the United States. However, this does not mean that Japanese law leaves good Samaritans without any protection.
According to Article 698 of the current Japanese Civil Code, “Emergency Management” stipulates that actions taken to protect the body, reputation, or property of others from imminent danger are not subject to liability for damages, provided there is no malice or gross negligence. In criminal matters, Article 37 of the Criminal Law also provides corresponding protection under the concept of “emergency refuge”. The Japan Red Cross Medical Foundation also includes this protection in its “First Aid and Resuscitation Guidelines” for general citizens, in order to alleviate public concerns.
In many places in Japan, emergency departments even directly incorporate this legal interpretation into first-aid education materials aimed at citizens.
For example, the Sunshine City Fire Department clearly stated in their response to the question “If first aid methods are performed incorrectly, will the person be held responsible?” that residents who carry out first aid with good intentions, without malice or serious negligence, generally will not be held civilly liable. Criminally, if the circumstances meet the criteria for emergency refuge, there is also no punishment. They also specifically reminded citizens that when cardiopulmonary resuscitation is needed, “it is important to act without hesitation and have the courage to begin rescue efforts.” Fire and emergency departments in cities like Sagamihara and Kamakura have made similar statements.
So conversely: If someone dies here, can the shop owner seek compensation from the deceased's side?
This is another issue.
According to some people on the internet, it seems that in China, the country pays compensation wherever people die, while in Japan, the families of the deceased pay compensation.
However, the actual judgments of Japanese courts are far from being so simple. There are two cases that are quite intriguing.
The first incident occurred in an office building in Tokyo.
In 2014, an employee of a company renting space in the building died from a fall from the emergency stairs outside the office building. The building owner believed that the death was due to suicide by jumping from the building, which could lead to a decrease in the building’s value. Therefore, the owner sought compensation from the renting company.
The first-instance court accepted some of the claims made by the property owners. The court determined that the employee took the initiative to climb over the barrier and committed suicide. The property owners originally claimed a reduction in the building’s value of 45 million yen, plus an additional 4.5 million yen for legal fees. The first-instance judgment ultimately determined that 10 million yen should be compensated.
But when the case went to the second instance of the Tokyo High Court, the conclusion was completely reversed.
On January 25, 2017, the Tokyo High Court concluded that the existing evidence was insufficient to determine that the death was suicide. More importantly, even if it were to be considered a death accident caused by negligence of the relevant personnel of the leasing company, it cannot be concluded that a business renting office space has an obligation to ‘ensure that the value of the entire office building and rental spaces does not decline due to a death incident’.
Therefore, the Tokyo High Court overturned the original judgment awarding 10 million yen in compensation, dismissing all of the landlord's claims. The Japan Real Estate Fair Trade Promotion Agency has included this case in its case law, summarizing this judgment in detail.
This case is quite interesting: the first-instance judgment considered that the death event might indeed lead to a "psychological flaw," while the second-instance judgment argued that this reduction in value should not be extended indefinitely into the tenant's liability for compensation. Japanese courts do not simply conclude that "someone has died, and the landlord’s house is not worth selling anymore," and therefore "someone must compensate."
Another case is more similar to the “natural death” in the Hengyang incident.
A company rented a residence as an employee dormitory. After one of the employees returned home after drinking alcohol, he died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage. The incident was not discovered until 4 days later. The landlord believes that this death caused a decrease in the value of the property and is seeking compensation of over 5.87 million yen from the leasing company.
March 9, 2007, the Tokyo District Court rejected this request.
The court's reasoning is quite straightforward: since a residence is a place where people live, it is natural for people to die there due to aging or illness. This is something that can be anticipated in real life. Unless there is a fire or improper use of equipment that can be attributed to the tenant's actions, it cannot be concluded that the tenant has violated the contract or caused a tort simply because someone died from illness in the rental room.
Two cases are placed together, and the boundaries are actually very clear.
Natural death itself is not a fault. Active acts such as suicide may lead to tort liability, but whether there is a legal obligation to compensate for the losses will still be determined by the court based on the specific circumstances of each case. The fact that death causes economic loss does not mean that there must necessarily be someone who is legally responsible for paying compensation.
This is also why it is inaccurate to describe China and Japan as "China is trying to get money from dead people, while Japanese businesses are trying to get money from dead people."
Regarding the incident in Hengyang, the legal judgment given by relevant authorities is clear: the authorities determined that Xiao Aihua was not at fault and therefore did not bear any legal responsibility. Article 184 of the Civil Code states: “A person who provides emergency assistance voluntarily shall not be held liable for damages caused to the person whom he has assisted.” Lawyers interviewed by the media also pointed out that there is no legal causal relationship between the elderly’s own illnesses and the store’s well-intentioned rescue efforts. The amount of 19,000 yuan, which constitutes humanitarian assistance, does not mean that the store acknowledges any infringement.
So, the real question left by this incident is not 'who should bear the blame according to the law'. Moreover, the case in Hengyang did not even reach the stage of going to court.
As for a person who does not bear legal responsibility, why did they still pay 19,000 yuan under the coordination, and mentioned “humanitarian compensation funds” in the transfer? It’s no longer a matter of law.
