Research On The Imputation Principle Of Liability For Injury Caused By A Kept Animal

On the choice of the imputation principle of liability for injury caused by a kept animal, China has experienced different periods. But even the current law does not completely clear on this question. Compared with the " General principles of the civil law of the People’s Republic of China ", the " Tort Liability Law of the People’s Republic of China" has some new changes about liability for injury caused by a kept animal,and makes it relatively specific and comprehensive. The imputation principles are more. The exculpatory and mitigating circumstances are strict. And several special responsibility circumstances are added. Although the "Tort Liability Law" relatively abundant the legislation of the liability for injury caused by a kept animal, its imputation principle is still confusion. Therefore the author introduces and analyses different imputation principles about the question, in order to be able to make it clear and give some useful suggestions, improving the law.This paper is divided into three parts. The first part analyses the history and current legislation of the imputation principle of liability for injury caused by a kept animal in China. Judges adopted fault liability in judicial practice prior to the implementation of the " General principles of the civil law of the People’s Republic of China ".Since its implementation, there are different choices in similar cases because of different comprehensions about the statute. Some court chose no-fault liability while others chose fault liability. The " Tort Liability Law of the People’s Republic of China" takes multiple imputation principles, choosing fault liability and different degrees of no-fault liability. However, the distinguishing standard is chaos. It also exists some problems to be solved.The second part describes the foreign investigation of the Imputation Principle of Liability for injury caused by a kept animal. On foreign law, they take different liability principles according to the different situations. Britain and the United States adopt the nature of animals as the standard, Ethiopia adopts the subject of damages as the standard, while Germany adopts both two above.The third part is about some suggestions on the imputation principle of liability for injury caused by a kept animal. Author suggests that we can learn from Germany, adopting both the difference of animals’ nature and the subject of damages as the standard to adapt to different situations. At the same time, this part also makes some explanation on the identification of the responsible subject and defenses on no-responsibility associated with the imputation principle.