SHENZHEN Intermediate People’s Court heard a case Monday in which a man appealed a lower court verdict ordering a driving school to return a 3,380-yuan (US$550) training fee to him.

    Longgang District People’s Court also ruled in the first-instance trial that the driving school should additionally pay the man, surnamed Li, interest incurred for failing to help Li finish his driving exams within four months as promised.

    Li appealed to the intermediate court and asked for further compensation.

    Li signed up for a driving course with Shenzhen Toda Vehicle Driving Training Co. (Toda) in April 2012 and paid 3,380 yuan in fees.

    He said the company promised that he could finish all the required driving tests within four months of his registration. But three years have passed since then and he still has yet to finish them.

    Li sued Toda and Shenzhen Zebra Driving Accompany Co. (Zebra), who actually charged the money, asking them to return the training fees and pay him compensation for pain and suffering, loss of income and other losses totaling 6,400 yuan.

    The Longgang court ruled in the first instance that the contract between Li and the two companies had been terminated and that the companies should return Li the 3,380-yuan training fee and pay him an interest payment on the amount.

    Toda said it isn’t liable because it hasn’t signed any contracts with Li since then or charged him any fees. The company also claimed to have lost their copy of the contract Li provided.

    Zebra said its legal representative started working for the company in December 2012 and as a result is unfamiliar with Li’s case. However, it agreed to pay Li part of his training fee; 1,156 yuan in registration fees have to be deducted, according to them.

    While appealing to Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, Li said the driving school training fee has surged to nearly 6,000 yuan over the past three years and asked Zebra to pay him 2,320 yuan in losses.

    The company said both parties had not reached an agreement on compensation for the training fee increase and asked the court to affirm the original ruling.

    The intermediate court has yet to hand down a verdict.

    Shenzhen has approximately 600,000 people who have signed up for driving tests but haven’t been given an opportunity to take them. The government blames this on limited resources for administering the tests. More than 1,000 people have waited three years or more.

    (Zhang Yang)