Case introduction

      The plaintiff, Ms. Xu, purchased visa agency services for herself and her family to travel abroad from an online store operated by a certain travel company. Ms. Xu claimed that due to an error in filling in the flight number for her and her family to arrive in the local area, they were placed under the supervision of the local immigration bureau and were issued a deportation order. They had to take a high priced flight back to their home country, and all subsequent travel plans could not be carried out. Ms. Xu's entire family has filed a lawsuit with the court, claiming that a certain tourism company should compensate her for economic losses of over 53000 yuan and mental losses of 40000 yuan.

      A certain tourism company is a seller of visa services, and Mr. Ren collaborates with an online platform established by the company to implement visa services. A certain travel company stated that they refunded all visa fees to Ms. Xu afterwards and should not be held liable for compensation. Mr. Ren acknowledges that he is the actual operator of visa agency services for Ms. Xu's entire family. Mr. Ren stated that after Ms. Xu placed the order, he collected materials from her entire family. Mr. Ren stated that he is only responsible for verifying the completeness of the documents and sending them to the local immigration office for visa processing. Mr. Ren stated that after the visa was issued, he had informed Ms. Xu to verify whether her name, date of birth, passport number, and round-trip flight information were correct. The visa content was mainly in English and not in Chinese, which Ms. Xu's cultural level could understand. However, she did not carefully check and found errors.

Court trial

       After trial, the court found that Ms. Xu purchased visa agency services for her entire family at a certain tourism company, and there was a contractual relationship between the two parties. Both parties should fulfill their obligations according to the contract. The parties involved in this case all agree that the visa was filled out and produced by the local immigration bureau, so it was not a mistake made by a certain tourism company in producing the visa. However, a certain tourism company is a professional agency for handling tourism visas, and Ms. Xu's family is ordinary tourists. Although the order details did not stipulate that a certain tourism company is responsible for verifying the accuracy of the visa or that it should be held responsible for such errors, the tourism company has a contractual obligation to verify the correctness of the basic information of the visa for its travel services. Meanwhile, Ms. Xu also bears some responsibility for not fully and effectively reviewing the visa information sent by Mr. Ren. The visa business operation in this case was specifically handled by Mr. Ren, who operates independently and has a business cooperation relationship with a certain tourism company. However, the performance of the contract is in the name of the tourism company, which acts as the counterparty to the visa service contract and should bear the compensation liability. Based on the reasonable losses suffered by Ms. Xu's entire family and taking into account the fault of both parties, it is determined that a certain tourism company will bear an economic loss of 30000 yuan.

Judge's Interpretation of the Law

        In the process of fulfilling tourism service contracts, the principle of good faith as stipulated in Article 509 of the Civil Code should be followed, and obligations such as notification, assistance, and confidentiality should be fulfilled according to the nature, purpose, and transaction customs of the contract. The legal provisions do not directly stipulate incidental obligations, and the principle of good faith requires a series of obligations to be fulfilled, namely the incidental obligations of contract performance. Accessory obligations are legal obligations that must be fulfilled by the contractual obligor, even if they are not explicitly stipulated in the contract, they should still be fulfilled by the contractual obligor. Visa errors that prevent tourists from traveling and result in corresponding losses must be considered as inadequate assistance work, a violation of contractual obligations, and a breach of contract.

        In this case, although the agreement between Ms. Xu's family and a certain travel company did not stipulate that the visa accuracy would be reviewed by the visa agency service provider, and the errors in the visa content were caused by the local immigration bureau of the visa maker, Mr. Ren, as the actual agent, sent the visa to Ms. Xu and also sent a "Notice" to remind her to review the visa information in a timely manner. A certain travel company also stated in the "Booking Notice" of the order that tourists should carefully review the visa information and bold the handwriting. However, a certain tourism company has an accompanying obligation to ensure the accuracy of visa information for the purpose of fulfilling the obligation of visa agency services, in order to achieve the contractual purpose of smooth travel for tourists. Even if Ms. Xu is reminded, she cannot be exempted from the corresponding accompanying obligation.

        This article is transferred from "Beijing Dongcheng Court" WeChat official account.