Chinese social media was recently outraged by the case of Xiaohui, a 10-year-old boy from Zhengzhou in Henan province, northern China, who was left with no choice but to sue his own father in order to get his savings back. The father had opened a bank account for Xiaohui and had deposited the boy’s so-called ‘red envelope money’ over the years, but he took it all out one day and spent it on his wedding, without Xiaohui’s consent.
After his parents divorced two years ago, Xiaohui continued to live with his father, who routinely deposited his Lunar New Year gifts, commonly known as ‘red envelope money’, and other savings into his bank account. However, at one point, the father met another woman and decided to remarry, at which point Xiaohui was sent to live with his mother.
After Xiaohui’s father remarried, the 10-year-old’s birthmother somehow found out that her ex had withdrawn all of their son’s savings and used them to cover wedding expenses. By that time, Xiaohui had saved over 80,000 yuan ($11,700), a rather significant amount for a boy his age.
When Xiaohui confronted his father and asked for his savings, he was told that the money had come mostly from his family and friends and that he intended to return it only when Xiaohui reached adulthood. After several attempts to reason with his father, Xiaohui took his father to court.
Despite the father’s attempts to convince the judges that he was within his rights to manage Xiaohui’s savings as he saw fit and that the entire lawsuit had been instigated by the boy’s mother, the Court ruled that the gift money legally belonged to Xiaohui as his personal property, and that his fatherhad infringed on it, despite being the boy’s legal guardian.
In its ruling, the Court ordered Xiaohui’s father to return all the boy’s savings, including the interest, which amounted to 82,750 yuan ($12,060).
