On The System Of Punitive Damages

The punitive damages is derived from the common-law system,and especially in the United State. In recent years, the civil-law system countries are affected by it, they not only have decided to launch a study of its jurisprudence, but also started to introduce the punitive damages on their legislation. However,lots of criticisms approach this system of punitive damages while it has been putting into the practice with its unique effectiveness. The doubts on the punitive damages are not only the rationality of its value, but also the problems of the substantive judges and procedural applications when it has been applied widely in recent years.The definition of the punitive damages has broad and narrow senses, and the difference between these two senses is that if the losses arise by the injuring activities can be a part of the damages or not. The punitive damages embody several legal values, such as justice, order, freedom, equality, safety, efficiency, etc, so that it has four functions, namely punishment, compensation, deterrence and encouragement.The earliest introduction of punitive damages in China was used in "Consumer Protection Law",which clearly provides the consumer's rights to asking for double compensation when the fraud happened. However, many problems also exist in specific application in it, such as the unscientific doctrines of liability principle, the amount singleness of compensation, and narrow scope of application.Because of that, we try to improve the applications of this system in China by using some different methods, such as introducing the doctrines of liability principle with subjective and objective consideration, enriching the content of compensation and expanding its scope of application. Although we advocate that the system of punitive damages should be extended in domestic application in order to against the unprincipled and unreasonable application, so that greatest effectiveness of this system can be realized.