Cases of Citizens Defending Environmental Rights: China’s First Case of Human Death from Noise Pollution

To help victims of pollution use the law to protect their legal environmental rights, and to give the wider public the basic legal knowledge to protect the environment and their environmental rights, the “People and the Environment” supplement of the Gansu Economic Daily closely planned and consulted with the Environment and Resources Law Research and Service Center at the China University of Political Science and Law before formally launching the “Citizens’ Environmental Rights Protection” column on May 9, 2007. Its goal is to advance and spread the implementation of environmental law in China.

This is a collection of cases that have already appeared in the “Citizens’ Environmental Rights Protection” column. Most are cases in which the Environmental Law Clinic and the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV) at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) have provided legal assistance.

Previously available only in Chinese, Greenlaw will be translating and posting one column each week with additional legal commentary.  These CLAPV columns are translated directly from their original versions and do not necessarily reflect the views of NRDC.

View the full case and commentary after the break.

Click here to view previous cases.

China’s First Case of Human Death from Noise Pollution
Author: Zhu Fen Source: Gansu Economic Daily Original Date of Publication: November 21, 2007
Translation by Owen Fletcher

Case Summary:
Mr. He, the defendant in this case, started a beverage factory in the courtyard of his home in 1995. The agricultural three-wheeled carts and iron-wheeled rickshaws he used to ship goods day and night created cacophonous noise. This severely disrupted life for his neighbors, the Wan family, who were separated from the home factory by just one wall. The Wans negotiated with Mr. He about the noise problem many times, but were never able to resolve it. Mr. Wan was easygoing by nature, but the long-term persistence of the noise caused him to become neurotic. He became depressed and ultimately committed suicide. On August 7, 2001, a test by the municipal EPB determined that even the carts with the smallest accelerators produced a noise volume of 67 decibels. This far exceeded national standards for sound emission. Mr. Wan’s son later contacted and asked for legal help from the Research and Service Center of Environment and Resources Law at the China University of Political Science and Law. With the center’s help, Mr. Wan’s wife and son filed litigation with the municipal People’s Court. Their suit requested that the defendant be ordered to stop his infringements and compensate his victims sums of 63,408 yuan and 20 yuan for economic losses, as well as 50,000 yuan in consolation for mental damages.

The defendant argued in his defense that the carts he used had passed production tests and conformed to EPB standards. He argued the carts would not create noise pollution and that it was untrue they had emitted noise at night. The court nonetheless determined that the carts had produced sound in excess of regulations, constituting a violation of rights. It ordered the defendant to cease his violations and to compensate the plaintiffs 13,495 yuan in economic damages. It did not uphold the request for consolation damages. Both sides were unsatisfied with the result and filed an appeal. The court of second instance ultimately agreed that the plaintiffs had suffered long-term from the noise pollution and sustained some mental damages, especially the pain caused by the death of Mr. Wan. The court therefore upheld the original ruling and ordered the defendant to pay an additional 20,000 yuan in consolation damages.

Expert Analysis:
This was China’s first case of a man hanging himself because he could not bear noise pollution (the first case of death by noise pollution). It caused a stir at the time. The controversy focused on how to accurately identify noise pollution and determine compensation for mental damages.

1) The boundaries of noise pollution
According to the Environmental Noise Pollution Prevention and Control Law, the following conditions must exist to constitute noise pollution: the noise emitted into the surrounding environment must exceed national standards, and it must disturb the life, work or study of other people.
China established restrictions on the emission of noise to protect the environment, and it set them according to economic and technical conditions and to standards for the quality of the environment. The regulations include the Industrial Company Vicinity Noise Standards and the Construction Site Noise Restrictions. These standards are different from those for manufactured products. The latter are restrictions the government has placed on industrial equipment that could produce noise pollution. They include the Motor Vehicle Allowed Noise Standards. They are standards products should conform to during design.

In this case, the defendant argued that whether his three-wheeled vehicles had violated noise restrictions should be judged according to the Motor Vehicle Allowed Noise Standards. He did so to deny his noise pollution and escape legal responsibility. This was in fact a blurring of the distinction between standards for environmental noise pollution and for noise created by products. The national EPB has stated in related documents that agricultural three-wheeled carts, hand-pushed iron-wheeled carts and other shipping tools used in manufacturing activity, if they produce noise pollution, must conform to the Industrial Company Vicinity Noise Standards (GB12348-90). This is therefore the applicable standard in this case since the defendant produced noise pollution.

2) Compensation for mental damages
Compensation for mental damages refers to mental pain caused to other people by a violator of rights. Laws allow for the victim to be given indemnity. The basic function of this principle is to make up for mental damages a victim sustains, and to provide consolation for mental suffering.

In 2001 the Supreme People’s Court issued the Interpretation on Determining Liability for Mental Damages Compensation in Civil Rights Violation Cases. This provided a legal basis on which to award mental damages: “People’s Courts should accept cases that legal persons file to request compensation for mental damages caused by illegal violations of their right to life, right to health, or personal rights.” It also made stipulations on the issue of substance: “Where the results are severe in a case of rights infringements causing mental damages, the People’s Court can order compensation paid as consolation for mental damages in accordance with the victim’s demands, in addition to ordering the violator to take civil responsibility by ceasing violations, restoring reputations, eliminating any influences on others, making amends and apologizing.” This makes clear that a victim is entitled to compensation for mental damages when noise pollution causes severe consequences.

Moreover, the Interpretation on Some Issues Regarding the Applicable Laws when Hearing Cases of Compensation for Physical Damages came into effect on May 1, 2004. This document also makes stipulations related to compensation for mental damages: “People’s Courts should accept cases filed by persons seeking compensation for property losses or mental damages when the person filing has sustained violations to his or her life, health or body.” But it should be noted that requests for mental damages must be raised in the process of litigation regarding a rights violation. A court will not accept a new mental damages compensation case if another trial based on the same events has been completed.

(This article was originally published in the Gansu Economic Daily. Many thanks to Professor Wang Canfa and Xu Kezhu of CLAPV for providing the materials.)