Research On Punitive Damages System

Punitive damages is usually regarded as a special system in common law.The traditional civil liability's basic principle is compensational,therefore,punitive damages,whether in China or in the Anglo-American countries,is a special way of damages.Nowadays,in the context of the Food Safety Law,which our country has just passed and will entry into force, clearly introduces the rule of ten-fold compensation,there is the need to study this rule.This paper puts the punitive damages as object,clarify the nature,function,justification,scope and amount of the punitive damages by the way of comparison and analysis,and put forward some ideas and proposals for the development of punitive damages combined with the legislation and practice in our country.Apart from the preface and the conclusion,the article is divided into five parts.There are about 32,000 words.The part of the preface summarizes the status of punitive damages in Anglo-American and civil law countries,and the development process in our country,and briefly describes the content,research method,and basic goal of this paper.The first part,an overview of punitive damages.This part introduces the concept and feature of punitive damages,and clear its meaning.Through analysing the purpose and function of punitive damages,it infers that the core function of it is to punish and deter illegal acts,and the effect of compensation and encouragement is the incidental effect and secondary function of punitive damages.Finally,it introduces the different views of the nature in Anglo-American and civil law countries,through analysis infers that the nature of punitive damages is a way to relieve the rights in private law.The second part demonstrates the justification of punitive damages.This part first discusses the constitutionality of punitive damages,then presents several theory of the division of public and private law in the civil law system.It also demonstrates the relationship between the punitive damages and the traditional compensatory damages.Finally,it introduces the situation of our constitution and the division of public and private law,especially the rules of the tort law's preventing and punishing violations's function in the Draft of Tort Liability Law(Second Draft),and infers that punitive damages has the justification and rationality in our country. The third part is about the scope of punitive damages.First,it introduces the development of punitive damages in the tort field,then analyses the applicable situations of punitive damages in this area,then it introduced the development of punitive damages in the contract field,and then explores the applicable conditions in this field.Finally,this part introduces the development of punitive damages in our country,and give some advices.The fourth part is about the volume of punitive damages.It first introduces the dispute on the volume in Anglo-American countries,that is how much punitive damages should be imposed that can both fully exert its function of punishment and deterrence,and not to overkill.Then it introduces several improvement programs proposed by states' laws and academics in recent years to the amount of punitive damages in the United States,and gives some opinion on the basis of analying this reforms.Finally,it analyses the legislation about the amount of punitive damages in our country,and try to propose some advise to the development of the amount of punitive damages of our country.The fifth part is about the insurable of punitive damages.This Part introduces the debates of this question in the Anglo-American,including positive and negative opinions more or less;then introduces the practice of state's legislation and the court of the United States on this issue;on this basis the author expresses some advice of the development of punitive damages in our country in the future.The conclusion part sums up the important role and the development of punitive damages in our country,and affirms the development path we takes,and gives some suggestions,then expresses confidence and expectance to the development of punitive damages in our country.