Recently, affected by the epidemic, some training institutions have changed their children's original offline classes to online teaching, causing widespread heated discussion among parents. Some parents thought the effect was bad and asked for a refund, but were rejected. In response to this incident, lawyer jinshisheng, partner of JAVY law firm, as a specially invited lecturer in the "civil code interpretation and reading" column of Beijing Radio and television science and education channel, made a detailed comment from a professional perspective.
Q: During the epidemic, the children's original offline training courses were changed to online courses, but I think the online courses are not effective. I want to refund the fees, and the other party doesn't agree. What should I do?
A: From the perspective of the civil code, the basic norm of parents' right to request the termination of the education and training contract and refund is paragraph 2 of article 563 of the civil code, "before the expiration of the performance period, if one party clearly indicates or indicates by its own behavior that it will not perform its main debt", the party can terminate the contract. The basic norm of the right of defense of training institutions is Article 180 of the Civil Code: "those who cannot perform their civil obligations due to force majeure shall not bear civil liability." Obviously, the main dispute between parents and training institutions is whether the unilateral change of offline classes to online classes by training institutions is an act of "indicating non performance of major debts" or an excuse for force majeure?
If the training service product explicitly agreed by parents and training institutions in the education and training contract is offline training courses, the main debt of training institutions should be to provide offline training courses, rather than other forms of training courses. Although the training institution has the right to partially or completely exempt from the liability for breach of contract for delayed performance in accordance with the force majeure clause in the civil code, this does not mean that the training institution can be exempted from the main contract debt. In case of force majeure such as epidemic prevention and control, if the training institution cannot perform the contract on time, it shall immediately notify the parents, and timely perform the contract debt by providing offline training courses after the force majeure is eliminated. The plan of using online classes instead of offline classes should be implemented after communicating with parents in advance and obtaining their consent. Otherwise, it shall be deemed as refusal to perform the main debt. Parents have the right to complain to the competent administrative department of education or bring a lawsuit to the people's court with jurisdiction to request the termination of the contract and the return of training fees. Walk with the law and brighten your life. For more legal knowledge, please pay attention to the general interpretation and reading of the civil code.
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