Common Law Punitive Damages Fund System Research

Punitive Damages is an important legal regulations existing in the Common Law System, andhave great influence on Civil Law System. It has two main functions, one is to punish thedefendant and the other is to prevent similar activities in the future.This paper discussed British and American punitive damages in tort law. As a very importantlegal system, punitive damages play a very important part in the deterrence of vicious tortsand anti-society activities. Also there are objection on this system and the main reasons heldby them are the uncertainty of it and lack of a uniform standard. So recently, in British andAmerican ,many scholars has advocated to take some measure to eliminate the negative effectof it and under the banner of tort law reform, they have impose some limits on the applicationof punitive damages. The study for these measures will do great help to the enactment ofChina's civil code.Considering the great meaning for the enactment of China civil code, the author pay greatheed to the reform measures taken by the Anglo-American countries and also concentrate onthe legislative status. For now, some Chinese scholars have advocated to establish Chineseown punitive damages, but most of them did not do a deep research on this issue. The thesisalso combines the Chinese relevant law status and gives some legislative suggestions for theenactment of punitive damages in China.