On The System Of Carrier's Responsibility In Contracts Of Transport By Railway

The system of carriers' responsibility occupies the position of the core of contracts of transport by railway. Basing on the introduction of contracts of transport by railway, the writer analyses the principles of bearing responsibility by carriers and reasons of exemption from responsibility. The limitation of responsibility of carriers in both passenger transport contract by railway and goods transport contract by railway is also discussed so as to examine the faults in the system design and in legal practice. The writer's opinion on the correction and complementarily to the system is hoped to benefit the system of carriers' responsibility in contracts of transport by railway in our country. Contracts of transport by railway should be defined as agreements in which the legal relationship between transport enterprises and passengers or consignors is determined. Passenger tickets luggage reports, packet bill and freight bills should be regarded as transport contracts or parts of them. The responsibility of carriers in contracts of transport by railway discussed in current article refers to the compensation responsibility by carriers due to violating contracts or to fail to perform other duties and causes damage to passengers and goods. Compared with common civil responsibility, it has characters of enforceability and limitation. It's enforceability can be embodied by law in which responsibility of carriers is ruled fixedly, the parties to the contracts can not stipulate provisions to reduce it, so as to supervise the safety of business. On the other hand, the limitation on the scope and amount of compensation by law embodies justice and fairness. Different countries have different regulations on the principle of responsibility distribution in contracts of transport by railway. Debate on it also was made in our country. However, the doctrine of strict responsibility had been accepted commonly after "Contract Act" enacted. Negligence responsibility principal was introduced in Article 303 of Contract Act, so that the responsibility distribution of carriers becomes more reasonable now. However, "Contract Act" and "Railway Act" has different regulations on the reasons for exemption from responsibility. The current article gives its own opinion of that the provisions in contracts exempting carriers' responsibility should be invalid. The limitation on carriers' responsibility refers to the limitation on the time limitation of responsibility, the scope of damage, the amount of compensation and so on, when carriers violate contracts of transport by railway or other legal obligations, so as to let carriers bear lighter responsibility than in common situation. The reason why it is stipulated so by law is that transport by railway has special characters, and that the principle of reasonable anticipant requires so. Firstly, the damage or destroy to goods of consignors made by carriers should be compensated only in the period during carriers bear transport responsibility. Compared with the legislation in Taiwan Province, Japan, Germany, the faults in the scope of responsibility of carriers and the limitation on the amount of compensation in current system in our country can be found. Therefore, the article discusses the issues of limitation of action, and exemption from responsibility, and exceptions. Moreover, the article analyses the joint and several liabilities beard by consecutive carriers, and point out the faults or shortcomings in our current system. Secondly, through the analysis on both systems of current limitation of responsibility of carriers and different opinions in legal practice, the writer designs a new system of compensation for delay of transport, and set forth that it is necessary to limit the compensation for the death of passengers. Then, gives suggestion of legislation of exempting carriers transporting passengers from responsibility. Basing on the above contents, the writer come out with his own opinion of improving the system...