Legal Analysis ： Sudden Death in Prostitution & 1。31M Claim

Recently, the People's Court of Lianzhou City, Guangdong Province released a case involving prostitution and visiting prostitutes. 

In Lianzhou City, Xie, the owner of a restaurant, got acquainted with Luo, a prostitute. After adding each other on WeChat, the two had four sexual transactions, with each transaction costing 200 to 400 yuan. 

At around 16:00 on May 21, 2025, Xie took the initiative to meet Luo again. After the two met in a room, Xie first took a shower. Then, just as he was about to have sexual relations with Luo, he suddenly began to convulse. 

Luo immediately called 110 to report the incident and clearly requested 120 emergency assistance. Ten minutes later, when medical staff arrived, Xie had already died, and the cause of death was determined to be sudden death. 

After the incident, the local public security bureau imposed an administrative detention of 15 days on Luo. However, Xie's wife and daughter believed that Luo should be responsible for Xie's death and claimed a total of more than 1.31 million yuan from her, including death compensation, funeral expenses, and transportation and lost work expenses. 

After hearing the case, the court ruled on August 18, 2025 to dismiss all claims of the plaintiff. 

The court's judgment was based on three main reasons: 

First, Luo had fulfilled her reasonable duty of rescue. She immediately reported the incident to the police and requested emergency assistance after discovering the abnormality, which was in line with the reasonable response of an ordinary person to an emergency; 

Second, medical certificates showed that Xie died of sudden death caused by his own illness, and there was no evidence indicating a legal causal relationship between Xie's death and Luo's actions; 

Third, visiting prostitutes is an illegal act. As a person with full capacity for civil conduct, Xie should bear the risks of his illegal act on his own, and the law will never cover "casualties" occurring in illegal transactions. 

Although Luo, the prostitute, had violated the law, she immediately reported the incident to the police and cooperated with emergency rescue efforts after Xie fell ill, thus fulfilling the rescue obligation of an ordinary citizen. Her fault was limited to undermining social ethics, rather than directly causing Xie's death. 

To determine civil liability for compensation, three basic conditions must be met: the existence of a wrongful act, the occurrence of harmful consequences, and a causal relationship between the two. In this case, Luo neither committed the wrongful act of intentionally delaying medical treatment, nor was Xie's death caused by her actions—thus, the conditions for compensation were not satisfied.

The law clearly stipulates the principle of "who claims, who proves." Since Xie's family failed to provide evidence of a causal relationship between Luo's actions and Xie's death, they had to bear the consequence of losing the lawsuit.

Hopefully this explanation helps you grasp the key points.