Research On The Relief Of Mass Torts

Since the third technological revolution has arrived, the substantial increasing in productivity also accelerated the development of economics. The exchange of economics and culture between countries pushed forward the inter-regional flowing of goods and services. Multi choices prompted the quality of people’s life. However things may also be a two-blade sword. Economic globalization did not only bring great convenience but also accompanied with the risk. Mass tort is one of the most outstanding performances. The so-called mass tort is "based on one or several homogeneous products and services, resulted in a large number of victims of personal injuries or property damage caused by the infringement or both." As a by-product with a highly developed level of technology, the peculiar uncertainty majority of the parties, the complexity of causation and damages of mass tort brought great obstacles to identify such incidents. Precisely because of this, it’s particularly important to take different from the general tort remedy.How to better cope with the challenges of mass tort, each state has adopted many ways which based on the basic national conditions and legal framework. There is not only traditional civil way, but also liability insurance and punitive damages system of innovative initiatives. Currently our mass tort remedies are mainly dominated by administrative means, but the government’s excessive intervention will increase the financial burden; representative action system stipulated in the Civil Procedure Law in such cases are rarely applicable; China’s current lack of a reasonable liability insurance model, the scope is narrow; Infringement massive relief fund system, although in the "Sanlu milk powder incident" in a simple attempt to obtain good results, but there are still many obstacles in basic legal support to implement the system in our country. To protect the legitimate rights and interests of victims of mass torts, China should form a relatively complete system of mass tort relief as soon as possible.Considering with the general condition of existing relief system, China should choose mass tort relief system by learning the advanced experiences from developed countries. The areas mainly including:the Government’s position is clear and full of relief; public interest litigation system and improve the system of representative litigation Civil Procedure Law; conditional draw market share theory of liability; selection of suitable mode of liability insurance; appropriate to expand the scope of punitive damages system; relief fund to build mass tort damages etc. Diversified mass tort relief system should give full display to the superiority of a variety of ways from each other to ensure the victims with comprehensive and perfect relief compensation.