The Procedural Mechanism Of Punitive Damages

Punitive damages could not be classified into an private law system, although it existed inthis system, rather it should be defined as an private law normal which had the quality ofpublic law. Therefore, those characteristic derived some problems of law application onfairness and justice, such as liability coincidence problem, procedural safeguards, burden ofproof and standard of proof problems.Punitive damages system was major breakthrough of civil legislation in our country.Traditionally, the study on this system focused more on substantial law, while less onprocedural law. Although punitive damages existed in private law, it could not be defined asa private law system; rather it could be rules of private law which had the nature of publiclaw. This feature derived some problems on fairly application of law, such as LiabilityCoincidence, Procedure Guarantee, Burden of Proof and Standard of Proof. From thePerspective of American Law, this article studies on the key points of punitive damages inAmerican infringement cases. Compared with the punitive damages cases in our country,this article analyzes the procedure mechanism of punitive damages, hopes it will be ofenlightenment to judicial practice, so as to make it reasonable in application.This article included four parts.The first chapter came straight to the point and raised the questions, the author pointedthat punitive damages had inherent and inevitable disadvantages by it, also introduced whatwas punitive damages, and what was the function of it.The second chapter studied how American Procedure Law overcame the weakness ofpunitive damages, by the research of relationship between the jury and the judge, studied theprocedural mechanism of it with the limit of constitutional due progress. The author pointedthat burden of proof and standard of proof are the key points of punitive damagesapplication.The third chapter explained the current disadvantages in our punitive damages progress through analyzing the specific cases.The last one compared with American corresponding system，the author brought someadvice to punitive damages, also designed some substantial system so as to get the point ofaccordance between substantial and procedural law.The plaintiff wanted to get the punitive damages; firstly, he should win the suit. Burden ofproof and standard of proof were the key words to do that. With this key point, this articledeeply analyzed procedural mechanism of punitive damages for different harvest.