2.被告不存在任何过错及侵权行为
由于事故发生于《民法典》生效前，故本案应当适用《侵权责任法》，且应当适用一般侵权构成要件分析被告是否构成侵权问题。首先，在相关工作完成后及时恢复供电系被告的合法、正常操作，被告复电行为合法，没有过错，不存在侵权行为。被告在发布停电公告时已明确表示停复电期间为计划时间，有变动的可能。根据日常生活常识也应当知道被告通知的停复电时间仅是计划时间，复电有提前或者延迟的可能。而《供电监管办法》第十三条第三款、《云南省供用电条例》第十八条第二款均明确规定，引起停电或者限电的原因消除后，供电企业应当尽快恢复供电。因此，被告本着保障持续供电、便利人民群众的生产生活的目的，在引起停电原因消除后及时复电的行为既符合情理也符合法律规定。
3.涉案火灾事故的发生与被告复电行为没有法律上的因果关系
一是根据《火灾事故认定书》以及原告的自认，本案事故系由于原告1家中插座短路故障引发，复电时间与原告1家起火时间相差一小时，即便没有停复电行为，只要原告1家插座有故障，就随时可能发生短路并引发火灾；二是复电后，除原告1家外，同一片区并无其他用户因复电发生事故；三是即便再次通知原告1被告可能提前复电，原告1一家除了自行排除家用电器故障之外，并没有其他措施可以避免事故的发生。最终，两审法院均认为被告的复电行为与三案损害的发生不存在法律上的因果关系。
管理启示
1.供电企业应进一步做好安全用电宣传工作
为避免类似本案悲剧的发生，建议供电企业应进一步做好安全用电宣传工作，除常规的发放传单、粘贴宣传资料之外，在发布停电计划、办理新装业务、开展用电检查等环节均宜反复告知电力用户应当做好自有产权电气设备安全用电隐患排查工作，普及安全用电知识。
2.建议电力用户树立产权意识和责任意识，做好自有用电线路、设备的安全维护，安全用电，理性维权
电力用户应当树立安全用电意识，提升安全用电能力，做好对自有产权电力设施的管理维护，摒弃那种只要事故与电相关就认为供电企业有责任，只要发生涉电事故，就要向供电企业主张赔偿的错误观念。不可否认，因涉案事故造成了三位受害人意外死亡，的确给两个家庭造成了重大损失和严重影响，不管是被告工作人员还是被告代理人对其家庭境遇均深表同情，但作为被告的供电企业是否构成侵权需在法律上严格界定，在证据上充分支持，司法审判亦无法用感情代替法律。因此，电力用户明确自身的权利义务，厘清法律关系，发生事故后理性维权十分必要。本案承办人为杨鹏、许灿虎律师。
Case | The power supply bureau was sued for fire infringement because restored power in late night, finally won upon the help of the G-stone lawyers
Case Brief
1. Facts
Due to the electricity grid expansion project, the defendant power supply bureau is required to black out the power supply to the area involved in the expansion project , the scope of the outage covers the area where Plaintiff 1's house is located. The defendant has issued a public notice 16 days before the outage: the outage is planned from 4:05 December 10, 2020 to 7:25 December 11, 2020. And it is specified in the notice that the outage time period is only the planned outage time, which may change. Nine days before the power outage, the defendant sent a short message according to the telephone number of the electricity account reserved by the plaintiff 1, informing the plaintiff 1 of the planned power outage time.On December 11, 2020, the defendant completed the relevant work to restore power, the specific time to restore power is 1:10 am. At 2:07 a.m (about an hour after the power was restored), Plaintiff 1's house caught fire, resulting in the death of Plaintiff 1's husband, son and another guest who stayed overnight at her house, totally three people, the Plaintiff 1's house also burned down. Then, the fire department made the Fire Accident Identification Letter, identified that the cause of the fire was a short circuit fault in the electrical wiring of the socket in the second floor living room in the plaintiff 1’s house.Plaintiff 1, as the owner of the burned house and the next of kin of her deceased husband and son, filed lawsuits in the court for property damage dispute and right to life dispute respectively, forming two cases, demanding the defendant to compensate $90,000 for the loss of the house and a total of $930,000 for damages caused by the death of her husband and son. Plaintiff 2 filed a right to life dispute lawsuit in court as the next of kin of the daughter who was burned to death in Plaintiff 1's home during a sleepover, which formed the third case, and demanded compensation from the defendant in the amount of $460,000 for damages.
2.Decision
In the three cases, the first instance court decided to reject the plaintiffs’ all claims. The plaintiffs in the three cases refused to accept the judgment of first instance and appealed, and the court of second instance ruled to reject the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
Legal Analysis
The issue in the three cases: should the defendant bear the tort liability?
The claims of three cases’ plaintiffs: The fire incident occurred due to the defendant restored power supply ahead of notified restoration time, resulting a fire damage caused by a faulty electrical circuit in Plaintiff 1's house. If the defendant had notified that the power would be restored earlier or strictly according to the notice restored power, the plaintiff 1’ families would have taken appropriate protective measures or the three victims would have gotten up, the accident would not have occurred. Therefore, the defendant should be liable for compensation. For the aforementioned claims, the defendant answered from the following aspects to show that the defendant should not bear tort liability.
1. The defendant is not the property owner of the household electrical equipment involved in the case, whether the case was caused by an electrical fire or not, the defendant should not bear any liability.
The main legal basis for this view is Article 51 of the Electricity Supply Business Rules that “The legal liability caused by accidents on power supply facilities is determined by the ownership of the power supply facilities. Whoever owns the property right will bear the legal responsibility caused by the accident on the power supply facilities.” Article 27 of Electricity Supply and Consumption Regulations in Yunnan Province also clearly stipulates that “Users should be responsible for the safety of their electricity facilities, strengthen the management of electricity, and in accordance with national regulations to set fixed term for inspection, maintenance and testing of electricity facilities, eliminate bad effects on grid security and power quality to achieve reasonable and safe use of electricity. Electricity supply companies do not bear the losses caused by unsafe user’s equipment.”
2. The defendant does not have any fault and infringement act.
Due to the accident occurred before the Civil Code entry into force, the Tort Liability Law should be applied in this case, and the elements of general infringement should be applied to analyze whether the defendant's constitutes infringement. First of all, it is the defendant's lawful and normal operation to restore power supply in time after the relevant work is completed. The defendant's act of restoring power is lawful and without fault, also does not constitute infringement. The defendant has made it clear when issuing the outage notice that the period of outage and restore of power is just planned and subject to change. According to the common sense of daily life, the plaintiff should also know that the defendant's notification of power outage and restoration time is only the planned time, the restoration of electricity may be earlier or later. Article 13, paragraph 3 of Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Electric Power Supply and Article 18, paragraph 2 of Electricity Supply and Consumption Regulations in Yunnan Province both clearly stipulates that after the cause for cutting or limiting power is eliminated, the electric power supplier shall resume normal electric power supply as soon as possible. Therefore, with the goal of ensuring continuous power supply and facilitating the people's production and life, the defendant's act of restoring power in a timely manner after the cause of the power outage has been eliminated is both reasonable and compliance with the law.
3. There is no legal causation between the occurrence of the fire accident and the defendant's restore electricity act.
First, according to the Fire Accident Certificate Letter and the plaintiff's self-confessed, the accident was caused by a short circuit fault in the plaintiff 1's house, the time to restore power and the time of the plaintiff 1's house caught fire have a difference of one hour. Even if there is no stopping and restoring power act, as long as the plaintiff 1’ s house socket is faulty, a short circuit and fire may occur at any time. Second, after the power was restored, except for the plaintiff 1, no other users in the same area had accidents due to the power restoration. Third, even if the defendant notified plaintiff 1 again that the defendant may resume power in advance, plaintiff 1's family did not have any other measures to avoid the accident other than troubleshooting the household appliances themselves. Ultimately, both first and second trial courts held that there was no legal causation between the defendant's act of restoring power and the occurrence of the damages in the three cases.
Management Inspiration
1. Electricity supply companies should further improve the safety of electricity propaganda work.
In order to avoid similar tragedies in this case, it is recommended that power supply companies should further improve the safety of electricity propaganda work. In addition to the conventional distribution of leaflets and paste publicity materials, for example, in the release of power outage plans, the handling of new installation business, the conduct of electricity inspections and other links, power supply companies should repeatedly inform power users to do a good job of checking the safety hazards of their own electrical equipment and popularize the knowledge of safe electricity consumption.
2. It is recommended that power users should establish consciousness of property rights and responsibility, maintain the safety of their own power lines and equipment, use electricity safely and defend rights rationally.
Power users should establish consciousness of safe electricity use, improve the ability to use electricity safely, manage and maintain power facilities with self-owned property rights. And abandon the misconception that once an accident is related to electricity, the power supply companies are responsible, and once an electricity-related accident occurs, the damaged people could claim compensation from the power supply companies. It is undeniable that the accident in case caused the accidental death of three victims, which did cause significant losses and serious impact on two families. Both the defendant's staff and the defendant's representative sympathized with the family's situation, but whether the defendant's power supply companies constitute infringement needs to be strictly defined in law and fully supported in evidence. Judicial trial cannot replace the law with emotion. Therefore, after an accident, the power user clears their rights and obligations, clarify the legal relationship, protects rights rationally is very necessary. The case undertakers of this case are lawyer Yang Peng and lawyer Xu Canhu.
本期撰稿：杨 鹏、许灿虎
本期译稿：解 佳、张 川
本期编辑：尤 喆
