The Taichung branch of the High Court on Tuesday upheld a previous ruling by the Taichung District Court that found the former operator of the city’s popular Rainbow Village tourist site not guilty of property damage for painting over murals at the site in 2022, although a civil suit for compensation is still under trial.
The Taichung Department of Culture that year lodged criminal and civil lawsuits against Rainbow Creative Co, after the company’s manager, Wei Pi-jen (魏丕仁), and 13 others painted over works at Rainbow Village, formerly a military dependents’ village featuring extensive murals by the late Huang Yung-fu (黃永阜).
Wei and the other defendants denied the charges, claiming that the works that were “vandalized” were created by the company after it won a bid to manage the site, and did not exist before the company took over.
Photo: Taipei Times
The contract for the company to manage the village was terminated in July 2022, at which point Wei and company officials painted over the works at the village that they created, the defendants said.
Other defendants said that Huang had already transferred the ownership of all his works to Wei, and that Wei making any changes to “his works” would not constitute intentional vandalism of other people’s work.
The district court, after reviewing the defendants’ exhibit of photographs referring to the 17 paintings that were vandalized, stated it was evident that the paintings were made by Wei and other company employees between 2017 and 2021.
The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office did not provide evidence substantiating the government’s claims that Wei and the company’s employees had vandalized Huang’s works in the village, the district court ruled.
It is also common for contracted companies to paint over their creations and return buildings “as they were” to the owner, the appellate court said in its ruling in favor of Wei and the other defendants.
The Taichung City Government has appealed the ruling.
Meanwhile, the civil suit against the company, demanding NT$1.5 million (US$50,130) in damages, was not substantiated by the district court. The appeal in the Taichung branch of the High Court is ongoing.
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