Correlation Research On Civil Fraudulent Conduct And Punitive Damages

Although it seems that the Civil Fraudulent Conduct has no relevance to the PunitiveDamages, in fact there exists much relevance between the two theses. Thus how to establishtheir relationship reasonably is of great importance. Civil Fraudulent Conducts include thefraudulent conduct in juristic act and the fraudulent conduct in tort law. Their differences liein the constituent elements and the legal consequences. For the fraudulent conduct in juristicact, its constitution just requires the defendant’s fraudulent conduct which leads the plaintifffalls into mistakes and makes the incorrect declaration of will; and its legal consequence is theinvalidity or the revocability of this juristic act. But the fraudulent conduct in tort law is onekind of torts with the occurrence of damage and the consequence of tort liability. The PunitiveDamages belong to the civil compensation liability, for the purposes to punish the seriousillegal act, to prevent the reoccurrence of this act, and to make the wrong doer to bear theextra damages except for actual damages. Because the fraudulent conducts both in juristic actand in tort law has the anti-morality and the modern civil law develops social standard andhumanistic solicitude, they can apply to punitive damages probably when certain conditionsare satisfied.Through the comparative study on the laws in the common law countries and in thecontinental law countries, it is discovered that when the civil fraudulent conduct applies to thepunitive damages, some logic shall be followed: the constitution of fraudulent conduct injuristic act does not require the damage fact and the direct consequence is the invalidity andrevocability of juristic act rather than the compensation liability, which cannot directly applyto punitive damages. Therefore, if the fraudulent conduct in juristic act applies to punitivedamages, the precondition is combining the objective element, the damage fact to furtherassess as the fraudulent conduct in tort law. In other words, the foundation of right of claim isfinally based on the regulations of tort law when the civil fraudulent conduct applies topunitive damages. However, because the punitive damages itself has great side effect, it needs to be noticed that even the civil fraudulent conduct meets all constituent elements of thefraudulent conduct in tort law, it may not apply to punitive damages. Whether to apply topunitive damages or not is decided by the applying conditions of punitive damages and otherimportant elements.In current stage, the scope of the civil fraudulent conducts shall be appropriatelyexpanded for the applying of punitive damages, because of differential status of both partiesinvolving in the civil fraudulent conduct, the probable seriousness of damage consequenceand the polymerization and social welfare of violations of civil rights and interests. From theview of applying law, to judge whether civil fraudulent conduct applies to punitive damagesshall be to see whether it constitutes the fraudulent conduct in juristic act or the fraudulentconduct in tort law, and meanwhile satisfies the applying conditions of punitive damages.Through the illustration of relevant matters between the civil fraudulent conduct and thepunitive damages, this paper hopes to reasonably establish the relationship between them.