Opinions of defendants such as Hengbang Real Estate: Geshan Construction's application for requiring other defendants to assume the so-called supplementary liability cannot be merged with this case. Because the shareholder's withdrawal of capital contribution is a shareholder liability dispute that harms the interests of creditors, it is not the same cause of action as the construction contract dispute and cannot be tried together.
The Higher People's Court of Jiangxi Province held that the "shareholder liability dispute that damages the interests of the company's creditors" and "construction contract dispute" put forward by the defendant Hengbang Real Estate in the first instance belong to different causes of action with different legal relations and cannot be tried together. If the same lawsuit involves more than two legal relationships, the cause of action shall be determined according to the nature of the legal relationship between the parties. If they are all legal relationships, the cause of action shall be determined according to more than two legal relationships.
Combined with the actual situation of this case, Geshan Construction may request that multiple litigation requests arising from disputes arising from the performance of the construction contract of the construction project be tried together. The joint trial does not violate the prohibitive provisions of laws and administrative regulations, but also conforms to the original intention of the Notice (Law (2011) No.42), which is conducive to further finding out the facts of the case, avoiding the litigation burden of the parties and saving judicial resources.
As for whether the shareholders of Hengbang Real Estate, namely Kangju Real Estate, Jianjing Industry, Anzhu Company, Quanxing Real Estate and Chuangzhi Technology, have evaded the capital contribution, and whether the shareholders bear supplementary liability for the outstanding part of the company's debts within the scope of withdrawing the capital contribution principal and interest, they should be determined and judged on the basis of finding out the facts of the case after the trial of the entity in this case.
Finally, it was determined that the jurisdictional objections raised by Hengbang Real Estate, Kangju Real Estate, Jianjing Industry, Anzhu Company, Quanxing Real Estate and Chuangzhi Technology had no factual and legal basis and were not supported.
The Supreme People's Court held in the second instance that: whether the dispute of shareholders' liability for damaging the interests of creditors of the company and the dispute of construction contract of construction projects can be tried together.
The Notice of the Supreme People's Court Municipality on Printing and Distributing the Revised Provisions on the Cause of Action of Civil Cases (Law (2011) No.42) is formulated to standardize the filing, trial and judicial statistics of the people's courts, in which "the same lawsuit involves more than two legal relationships" as stipulated in the third paragraph of Article 3 refers to the legal relationship when the parties bring a lawsuit to the court based on the same legal fact. The people's court can determine the reasons for filing two cases in parallel, which does not mean a breakthrough in the conditions for litigation merger stipulated in the Civil Procedure Law, nor can it be understood that cases with different parties, different legal relationships and different legal facts can be tried together.
The dispute over the construction contract of the construction project has not yet been tried, whether Hengbang Real Estate is in arrears with the construction funds of Geshan is pending, and whether Geshan Construction enjoys creditor's rights is pending. If the effective legal document determines that Hengbang Real Estate is in arrears with the project payment of Geshan Construction, and decides that Hengbang Real Estate will repay the principal and interest of the arrears, and the assets of Hengbang Real Estate are insufficient to repay the creditor's rights of Geshan Construction, Geshan Construction may file another lawsuit.
Referee points:
For cases with different causes of action, the following conditions must be met: First, the parties are the same; Second, based on the same fact; Third, it is based on the same legal relationship.