Residents of the Doctors' Home Complex (
An investigation after the collapse found that the company that built the complex in Hsinchuang, Taipei County, Ho-chang Construction, was not in fact a licensed construction company and should not have been allowed to conduct the complex's construction project.
To skirt regulations, the company rented a professional license from another construction company -- called Chia-hsin (
The Panchiao District Court issued a ruling on June 12, in which 13 defendants connected with the construction of the apartment complex received sentences ranging from eight months to seven years imprisonment on charges of manslaughter and forgery.
The chief construction foreman of Hochang Construction, Lin Yi-hsin (
Lin Ming-tang (
The prosecution had originally brought charges of manslaughter and forgery for those who rented and received the construction license.
But while the court determined shoddy construction work was responsible for the disaster, it was not convinced the acts of license-renting had resulted in the poor quality of the work. On the grounds of a lack of a causal link, it then dismissed the charge of manslaughter against the defendants involved in license-renting and only convicted them of forgery.
The residents of the complex, who are still negotiating with the defendants over a settlement worth NT$600 million, have felt so dissatisfied with the ruling's leniency regarding the acts of license-renting that they together requested Panchiao District Court prosecutor Chen Ming-hsiang (
The prosecutor confirmed he had filed the appeal yesterday and said he hopes the High Court would agree with his views on the serious impact of license-renting on building safety.
Apart from the criminal case, the residents of the complex are also pursuing a class litigation against the defendants, seeking damages -- general and punitive -- of over NT$2 billion.
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