Hot social media topic: Argument over smoking in lift precedes heart attack. Family wants compensation; case goes to court

[Wippen (inactive)]

A heated argument broke out between two people in a lift about smoking in a confined space. This happened to precede the heart attack of one of the people involved in the argument. A man had challenged an elderly man smoking in the lift pointing towards the consideration of other people's health. They got into a heated argument. Then after  the one man left, the older person subsequently died of a heart attack. The man, who had been involved in the argument, returned when he saw the ambulance close to the place where they had been arguing. It turned out he was doctor. He did not know this emergency involved the man he had just had an argument with. The man gave his details. After this, the older man's family decided to sue the man as they felt he had contributed to the heart attack. The courts agreed that there was some responsibility on his part and then ordered him to pay 15,000 renminbi. The family had sought a much higher compensation namely 400,000 renminbi. They then appealed. The end result was the courts decided the man did not have to pay anything. He made a donation of 10,000 renminbi to the family. Link to article.

The article is suitable for intermediate level.

Vocabulary

猝死 sudden death (for example cardiac arrest or infant cot death)
驳回 dismiss (as in lawsuit)
诉讼(+ 请求) lawsuit, claim,
一审 - first trial
纠正 correct, straighten out, rectify, put right,
劝阻 discourage from
发生 + 争辩 (construction) argument occurred
语言+争执 verbal spat, war of words,
提起上诉 lodge an appeal
意料之中  come as no surprise (This is a chengyu and one you see often)
私下交流 private exchange
捐赠 - donation
扯不+上关系 not at all related (fixed expression)
有所顾虑 have concerns/misgivings (not chengyu, it seems)

(To me, the article is not 100 percent neutral, as it appears to say he suffered a heart attack *as a result of* the emtional distress. Can they claim that? We don't know if his time was up anyway. What do you think)

[陳德聰]

The inference I take from that is that in the first court decision, the court found this to be true. I think this is hinted at in the decision that Mr. Yang was involved, but that it was not an unavoidable consequence of the altercation that the older man had a heart attack and died. I think the fact that the first decision was in favour of the plaintiff is pretty absurd though.

[Wippen (inactive)]

15 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

was in favour of the plaintiff is pretty absurd though.

Agree. In fact after the first hearing the case did not achieve much attention. It was only after the second decision in January 2018 that people really started to talk about it.

[Messidor]

without recordings we can never know the causality.

the name of this case on social media is not neutral in the first place. 劝烟致死案?! what the… let me translate this name verbatim into English: 

劝                            烟         致          死       案

persuade (not to) smoke caused death case.

it's somewhat hilarious when people say 劝烟致死案中杨某没有责任。( in the case "persuading not to smoke caused death" the persuader is innocent)

 

btw, "baijiahao" is one of the most disgusting productofs the search engine "baidu", which is the flunky of the govt.

[陳德聰]

Was gonna say, the article comes from a rag so we should take everything with a grain of salt.

[Wippen (inactive)]

36 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

Was gonna say, the article comes from a rag so we should take everything with a grain of salt.

Actually the article was chosen by my tutor who followed my brief  exactly of wanting a hot social media topic. All of the articles I post with "hot topic" in the headline are from that selection 

 

So are you saying if a paper is well respected in China we don't need to apply 'a grain of salt' ? (Smiley here and no response required)

[Jim]

Just think how much hotter the topic could have been if he'd urinated on the lift buttons too after remonstrating with him.

[ChTTay]

Still makes good practice regardless.

 

I’m wary of most news that comes out of these parts. Especially these types of “web articles” though. Even English language ones in Beijing put out a lot of click bait. 

 

At a previous school a lot of teachers got all worked up about not being able to take the subway to work due to a holiday closure. Stormed the Head office, demanding money for taxis or days off etc. In the end, the story was just from some random English wechat blog type site that had been shared around pre-holiday. It was mostly nonsense! The subway wasn’t closed, just closed a bit earlier which didn’t have any affect on us. 

[Wippen (inactive)]

4 minutes ago, ChTTay said:

I’m wary of most news that comes out of these parts

 

5 hours ago, 陳德聰 said:

Was gonna say, the article comes from a rag

 

Here the same story seen from Xinhuas perspective:

 

http://www.xinhuanet.com/legal/2018-01/29/c_1122330004.htm

 

And renmin wand including CCTV coverage  (at the bottom)

 

http://legal.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0123/c42510-29781535.html

 

These two news outlet give more information on the case

 

However, the first article may be more suitable for intermediate level given the length of the article is shorter.

[ChTTay]

Thanks for the links! Fake news comes from all sources.