The Study Of Building Mass Products Torts Remedy Mechanism

With the deepening of the degree of modern industrialization and the widespread use of large-scaled production and operating activities, mass products torts have been common occurrences. The compensation for personal injury litigation triggered by "U.S. Asbestos Cases" in the1960s still remained with a total of about730,000victims filing a lawsuit against8400asbestos producers;"Japan Yusho Disease Incident" in1968resulted in the sudden death of hundreds of thousands of chickens with human patients up to1684within a decade. News media constantly exposes many domestic reports of such incidents in China, such as the "Big-Headed Babies" incident occurred in2004in Fuyang, Anhui Province and "Cases of Kidney Stones in Infants" caused by Sanlu tainted milk powder in2008, even "Industrial Gelatin Yogurt" and "Poisonous Drug Capsules" occurred in the process of the author’s writing this article.Mass products torts have the characteristics of the large number of victims, the serious consequences of the damage and the uncertainty of the causation, which make a great impact on the traditional tort laws, and also pose a challenge to judicial practice.Due to the high compensation accumulated by the presence of a huge group of victims and the harsh impact of the events on the corporate reputation, it is so easy to make the company go bankrupt, even with minor damages, which directly threat the realization of the compensation function of tort laws. In addition, the interval between the violations of mass products torts and the consequences of the damages is often long, thus, how to prove that the damages to the victims of it are caused by a defective product becomes the important question troubled judicial practice. What’s more, the fact that there are often more than one product manufacturer of similar products causes damages to many consumers. Thus, because of the homogeneity of the harmful behaviors of multiple infringements but the differences of the extents of damages, it is hard for the victims to prove which products and enterprises should be responsible for their damages. With the uncertainty of the defendant, the support on procedural laws by seeking relief through litigation could not be attained. A right must be a remedy and a right without remedy is not right. As a private security law. if tort can not provide remedy for the victims of rights, it can easily lead to public criticism and doubts about the value of tort law and justice, as well as the great decrease of the status and authority of the law in people’s hearts. Single claims always drag the enterprise into a position facing a timeless payable litigation and having no time to the subsequent development of the enterprise which may gradually make the enterprise paralyzed, and even get the risk of bankruptcy. In addition, unlike the common infringements, once a link of mass products torts is not handled properly, it is most likely to lead to mass disputes with an impact on social stability and development. Therefore, the design of a set of remedy modes to protect the rights of victims and provide the survival room for infringement enterprise is particularly important.While industrialization of the Western developed countries steps earlier and bigger than China, naturally, the investments of time and energy are much bigger than us in the face of mass products torts with a lot of experience and lessons accumulated in practice to settle such cases, which provide this study a lot of fundamental information. Have carefully studied the relevant legal measures in the major Western developed countries by keeping their essence and discarding their dregs, the author of this paper, combining with China’s national conditions, tends to build a comprehensive remedy system for mass products torts. First, in the improvement of traditional tort law, the major Western countries have two solutions:market share accountability and common risk behaviors. When comparing and analyzing these two solutions, the author proposes the market share liability system and tends to improve it with the suggestion of the promotion of product liability insurance, especially mass products liability insurance in China. The establishment of mass products damages fund is also an important component proposed in this article for the remedy system. This mechanism is based on Tort Liability Act, combined with liability insurance and compensation fund system to ensure the remedy of the victims timely and adequate. Our nation should play an important role in this remedy mechanism. In addition, the nation shall bear the liability of the supplement if there would be some ineffective supervision faults.