Comment On The Reward Case Of A Wrong Word Of One Thousand Yuan

Reward-offered advertisement disputes have become commonplace in our dailylife. However, there are few stipulations and regulations on reward-offeredadvertisement in our country. Only the legitimacy is recognized but no specificregulation is put on major points such as attributes and constitution characteristic.Therefore, it is easy to get confused with other similar behaviors in judicial practices.In this paper the source of the dispute case is because the flaw of meaning expressedby the doer causes the wrong understanding of the counterpart which results inreliability and responding with similar behavior. In terms of the flaw of meaning, it isstipulated in our civil law that there are various flawed meanings such as fraud,intimidating, taking advantage of others, major misunderstanding and unconscionablebehaviors etc. However, considering its characteristics and attributes it is easy toconclude that the five types cannot give a reasonable explanation about the concretecondition of the case. The defendant in this case denied any action of publishingrewarding advertisement and gave self-claim that the “declaration” he made is ajoking matter. But there is no intention for a specific purpose and effect. Jokes arewhat we usually say casual talk. In legal terms it is called bantering. Bantering has notbeen specifically stipulated in our country. According to the national code ofcountries such as Germany and Japan as well as the summery made by our scholars inTaiwan bantering can be generally defined as the commitment made by the doerwithout any real intention and there is no expectation of the believing of thecounterparts. Since bantering represents that the real intention is purely out ofentertainment and courtesy and in essence there is no motive for legal obligation andright. Therefore, the legal consequence of bantering should be deemed as ineffectiveact. Thus it is distinguished from the legal action of positively searching for certainconsequence derived from the inherent intention of the counterpart. A salient exampleis the action of rewarding. The essence of private autonomy lies in the free meaningexpressed by the litigant. As long as the behavior of the civil subject does not runcounter to the basic principle of private law the legislation should allow and evenencourage the self development of freedom for the sake of civil act. Therefore whenevaluating a certain legal act the spirit of self autonomy should be adhered to andfurther exploration should be made on the real meaning of the inherent civil subject.