A Jurisprudential Analysis On Stipulation Of Exemption Of Personal Injury

Stipulation of exemption of personal injury is a problem that people just show solicitude for in recent years in our country. It, as one kind of invalid contract stipulated in "the Contract Law", investigates the responsibilities that responsibility person should take based on the tort act. Being sort of state intervention, this regulation has gradually shown obvious limitation faced with complicated reality in society.The stipulation of exemption of personal injury in law has to meet the actual questioning and challenge in life. Who ought to bear the responsibility for personal damage? Whether this responsibility can be given up by agreement? This paper, based on some legal provisions and actual realities in the society, sets out to comb out and analyze this problem, striving to have a clearer understanding of these problems.According to the 53rd article of "contract law ", exemption clause is invalid if the item hurts the person concerned on the other party. As for this regulation, the NPC and its Standing Committee as well as People's Supreme Court all do not make any explanation, but at present one kind of comparatively general viewpoint is popular: "in nature, a person has the capacity to deal with his personal affairs. Only in this way can a person develop his personality, and defend his self-dignity sufficiently. But the absolute autonomous rule of private law will cause abuse of rights and hence do harm to the justice of society. Therefore the personal autonomous rule of private law must be restricted. However, because of the complexity and differences it may have, the restrictions have to take into account different things as follows: when autonomous rule of private law is faced with personal injury, with the rights of life and health presupposed the utmost in advance, the restriction would have been absolutionized. So it will be certainly invalidated without exception by our country law ". However, people all may be false on the evaluation of significance of personal rights due to the social factors outside the person himself. Therefore, there are inside contradiction in the reason. The key to resolving the matter lies in the understanding of "personal injury" and"meaning autonomy".Historically speaking, being people's basic rights, the law from the very beginning has been protecting personal rights. The law has given it peculiar protection, and in the meanwhile set strict restrictions on people's complete and autonomous control of the personal rights of themselves or others in our country. In fact, in modern society, in every country, the law has not endowed individuals with completely autonomous rights of controlling their own body in principle with only three exceptions: First, owing to the regular life need, people could be allowed to separate some parts of his body from the whole by himself or others; Second, for medical reasons, people could be allowed to take measures that adapt to cure of diseases by himself or others under some conditions; Third, for the public good, people could be allowed to make donations without damaging his health and life. Except these three exceptions, the law holds a negative attitude to all acts that may hurt one's body, even though this is out of his own will. The profound paradox lies in that such acts,"and they are "for increasing people's choices in the long run". The reasons for modern law in this are for protecting people's safety and liberty from serious harm which could not be remedied by law on one hand; and on the other hand are also to guard against chaos of people's thinking, and the disorder affecting society that possibly arouses. Therefore, the law sets strict responsibility restrictions on personal injury.Personal injury, as a kind of"value loss"for an individual, needs a positioning in the reconciliation of individuals and society. Stipulation of exemption of personal injury also requires finding a balance point in the clash of personal values and social values, which does not impede social progress and will maximize the protection of the interests of the individual.Stipulation of exemption of personal injury on the surface reaches a contract between the meanings of two different individuals. Actually its value goes beyond the mere personal choice and is the choice of values imposed by the country's will according to the real situation. This choice of values in our country has not taken the form of a compromise, because China is still in the transitional period of reform, in which parallel values of cultural diversity and pluralism exist, social gap between strong and vulnerable groups is made prominent, and social contradictions have become quite sharp. In this case, the void solution is the fairest treatment in the overall effect, which weakens the people's discontent and conflicts so as to turn down conflicts and stabilize the society. Therefore, stipulation of exemption of personal injury at this stage reflects the will of the state, taking contracts as the surface, personal choice of values as a starting point and basing itself on the choice of values as conclusions.The ultimate goal of stipulation of exemption of personal injury is full manifestation of the development of personal autonomy of a legally binding contract. Stipulation of exemption of personal injury is not just China's accidental phenomenon; many countries in the world have the legal provisions in this regard. Generally speaking, these provisions can be roughly divided into two types: one provision is divided, according to the fault, into deliberate, gross negligence and negligence light. The deliberate and gross negligence are invalid, light fault will depend on the specific circumstances for different treatments; another provision will be invalid. At present, the contradiction between country's push and the arousal of individual autonomy is more and more obvious. There are a lot of systematic obstacles affecting individuals'full development. Therefore the focus of the country development is naturally tilted towards the initiatives an individual should take, giving the individual more liberty and guarantee and providing bigger room for fervency motivation and potential development.Moreover, stipulation of exemption of personal injury, as a form of right relieving, is also sharing responsibility of personal risks. If the legitimacy that this responsibility shares is removed, it may make one party refuse to carry out business because of worrying about the potential risks. It is so important that will affect development of the economy and cause inconvenience to people's life. Therefore, it will be a wise choice to give that contract some free space, that is, the deliberately or significant fault is agreed to invalidate, but the slight fault is agreed to be effective. And in some way this manifests itself as a signal of development of protection of private laws.