Study On Approximate Cause Principle In Marine Insurance

As we all know, everything in the world is directly or indirectly related. When we try to study the relation between causes and effects, it is very often to find they are so complicated. As far as a specific subject is concerned, not every relation could be the object, and only part of them could be considered.This thesis begins with the current regulations and practice of causation in marine insurance in China, In order to keep up with the current situation, we need to know the background of the widely accepted principle and its development in the course of settling the disputes between the parties of marine insurance policies. The second chapter introduces the concept of causation in philosophy. It has been a long time for this concept being introduced into civil law and then into marine insurance. In the early centuries, the discussion was focused on the "fault". And with the development of economy and the increasing of industrialization, causation in civil disputes attracted lots of scholars' attention. There are various different opinions about it, but among them, the principle of proximate cause is prevailed in law and practices in marine insurance. And some scholars advocate that the chain of causation can be broken by some events.Therefore, the following chapter mainly discusses the comparability of the different the criteria. And then get the conclusion that which criteria match the concrete situation in China.How to apply this principle to settle the dispute between the assured and the insurer? The judgments vary according to different judges, In this chapter, the author try to give general ideas about what should be considered when this principle is applied. About the criterion ofproximate cause, judges in common law system suggested one "common sense test". In this test, they advocated that judges should apply common acknowledge ofpeople on the street, while trying to find the proximate cause in the complicated relations between causes and effects.And in the fifth part, the thesis mainly discusses the onus of proof about causation in marine insurance. This chapter begins with the introduction of the concept of proof, onus of proof in a general way. Then, in marine insurance, the regulations and practice about the balance of probabilities are closely related to the onus of proof of the parties. Some special rules are applied in different circumstances.The last chapter, in the light of the insufficiency in the causation legislation in the marine insurance law, this thesis tries to give the author's opinion about this matter.