The Issue Of Mental Distress Damages For Breach Of Contract

As to the question whether people can suit for the mental distress in breach of contract, different people have different ideas. In our country, most of the civil law scholars think only the mental distress because of tort can be suit for. The mental distress in breach can’t be suit for. Because they are hard to proof, calculate and foresee. Besides, they may impede the conduct of transaction and so on. So they should be resolved by the responsibility coincides theory. Now our law limits mental distress compensation in tort. Whether the liability of breath include mental distress is not clearly defined. In the judicial practice, judges around the uneven level make different judges. Some judges recognize the mental distress in breach of contract, some do not recognize. Even in the cases which the judges all recognize the mental distress in breach of contract, judges accord to different reasons. Some judgments based on tort; some judgments based on the responsibility coincides theory; some judgments don’t have clear reasons. This undoubtedly causes some degree of judicial confusion, and is bad for our country’s establishment of the rule of law. Looking at the foreign legislative cases, we can know that both common law countries and civil law counties, and even the international laws, have gradually expanded the scope of mental damages by national jurisprudences or legislations. In some degree, they all recognize the mental distress compensation in breach. So we should gradually establish our own mental distress compensation system. The law should specifically provide the elements of the mental distress compensation, and its limit rules, calculation principles and so on, in order to protect people’s mental interests and material interests effectively and fully.This article is divided into the following sections. The first part is a brief introduction.the author makes a brief introduction to relevant concept and the history of spiritual compensation for damage. Beginning with the concepts of spirits, the spirit damage, the spiritual compensation for damage, the author analyzes the character, the nature, the function and significance of spiritual compensation. In the second part, the author studies the reasons which prove that mental distress damages couldn’t be compensated in the contract area, and then find the defects of those reasons and get to the conclusion that mental distress damages can be compensated in the contract area. In the third part, the author shows the legislation and cases of the typical countries in American Law System, as well as those in the civil law system. More and more countries tend to admit the mental distress damages for beach of contract. China should follow the tendency of the world and try to establish the system. The fourth part mainly talks about that establishment of the mental distress damages for breach of contract is necessary. In our country, constructing the institution of compensation for mental injury is the need of the socialism law, as well as the need of social morality. In the fifth part, the author talks that what legislative model our country should takes in the process of constructing the mental distress damages for breach. The sixth part is, in which the author puts forward his own legislation suggestion for the perfection of system in compensation for damage. The mental compensation system have been built after a history vacancy in our country, and now it has an expand trend in many aspects, such as law case amount, compensation amount and appeal extension, etc.