Punitive Damages In China's Law System

Punitive Damages is a very important and controversial concept of the common law system, especially of the U.S. law system. It also takes a tremendous impact on judicial practice in these countries. However, most of the civil law countries are taking a negative attitude to it. In China, there are many scholars make so much useful exploration about the rationality and feasibility of it too, and we can see it in our Consumer Protection Law, Food Safety Law and the Tort Law. But at the same time, many other scholars and researchers oppose the introduction of the Punitive Damages too. They heated debate on whether, how and in what condition to apply it. In fact, China's socialist economy is in the period of rapid development, and the conflict of the cultural and material interests is more and more furious. We even often can see the product quality problems, malicious fraud, intentional tort, and large scale food safety issues in these years, so actually we urgently need a rule like the Punitive Damages to stop them. In this paper, I takes my research on studying the origin and the development of the Punitive Damages in these countries who have got very successful experience, and combing with the our legislation and social status to enrich and expand the theory of the Punitive Damages. This paper is divided into 5 chapters, now I briefly introduce them in following words:Chapter 1. The Introduction. It briefly introduce the background, significance and the research situation at home and abroad of the Punitive Damages.Chapter 2. The General Reading About The Punitive Damages. In this Chapter, I take the research on the Punitive Damages'concept and characteristics, the difference between Punitive Damages and the Traditional Damages, and the practice significance, legal attributes and functions of the Punitive Damages.Chapter 3. The Study on Other Countries'Punitive Damages. In this Chapter , I will take my research on studying the origin and the development of the Punitive Damages in these countries who have got very successful experience. From their experience, we can learn how to perfect our own Punitive Damages.Chapter 4. Our Current System of the Punitive Damages and The Review of It. In this Chapter, I will introduce the origin and current situation of the Punitive Damages in our country. I also comment that the rule of Punitive Damages in our current'Consumer Protection Law','Intellectual Property Law'and the'Food Safety Law'. I also pay attention to the concept of the Deposit Penalties.Chapter 5. Improving Our Punitive Damages. On the base of the comment, I give my own suggestion that how to improve our Punitive Damages, especially to solve the problem of constituent elements of Punitive Damages and how to determine the amount when the Punitive Damages is applied to.