Research On The Distribution Of Burden Of Proof About "No Legal Basis" In Unjust Enrichment

Unjust enrichment system is a basic system of civil law. Confirmation of unjust enrichment needs four aspects of essentials. With regard to the distribution of the burden of proof about the four essentials in lawsuits, Chinese laws and judicial interpretations have not given explicit stipulations. The point in question mostly focuses on which side of lawsuit should undertake the burden of proof considering that the beneficiary obtains interests "no legal basis" in the unjust enrichment relationship. With increasing lawsuits of unjust enrichment, the disunity of practical operations of courts in various regions in practice leads to different results of the same event and a mess with too many contradictions in the first and second trials. In addition, the theoretical circle holds different opinions on this problem without consensus. In the meanwhile, with regard to different types of litigations of unjust enrichment, judges usually distinguish the different types and respectively affirm the distribution of the burden of proof about the essentials "no legal basis" based on their preliminary judgments, which thus results in chaos of practical operations. All of these reflect the importance and reality of studying this problem. The different results of the same event caused by the disunity of practical operations actually demonstrate the different foundations of legal theories. Judging the correctness of the different distributive rules of courts should rely on deeply parsing the grounded theories. The author plans to take "legal essentials classification theory" and "theory of reducing the burden of proof" as the analysis tool of demonstrating and solving the problem, demonstrates that the burden of proof about the essentials "no legal basis" in the litigations of unjust enrichment should be based on "legal essentials classification theory" and applies a variety of continuously developed technologies of "reduction of the burden of proof in the practice of civil judicature according to the differences of proof procedure and difficulty of the different types of litigations of unjust enrichment so as to strike a general balance between the two parties in seeking for the methods of solving the conflicts of interest and thus attempts to set up a system scheme capable of guiding specific juridical practice.The paper is divided into four parts in total.In the first part, the paper raises the problem. Through conducting horizontal and vertical empirical analysis of five collected and selected cases with typical significance, the paper explores that the divergence usually exists in the first and second trials of courts regarding the same case in juridical practice and no consensus is reached about the rule of the distribution of the burden of proof about the essentials "no legal basis" because courts are accustomed to distinguishing the types and respectively judging the distribution of the burden of proof about the essentials "no legal basis" with regard to the different types of litigations of unjust enrichment and thus puts forward the problem.The second part analyzes the reasons of the problem. This part probes into and analyzes the hidden reasons of the problem from two different perspectives including legislation of the distribution of the burden of proof and the unjust enrichment system and lays a foundation for the construction of solutions to the problem.The third part teases and summarizes the basic theory introduced by different opinions and argument opinions held by the academic circle on the distribution of the burden of proof with regard to the essentials of unjust enrichment "no legal basis" and points out the main two divergence points about the different theories of the problem of scholars, namely the divergence of "the theory of unity" and "the theory of disunity" and the internal divergence of "the theory of unity" and "the theory of disunity".The fourth part constructs the solutions to the problem. Through refuting the unreasonable parts listed in the third part, this part reasonably demonstrates the theories it acknowledges, takes the classification theory of "legal essentials" put forward by Rosenberg as the basis, innovatively combines the theory of "reduction of the burden of proof which continuously develops in civil judicial practice and constructs a systematic solution to the problem.