The Compensation For Mental Damage In Breach Of Contract

With the development of the improvement of social civilization, people tend to strengthen protective mind about their mental benefits and pay more attention to their own pursuit of dignity and value. The contract relationship involves an increasing number of mental benefits, thus the compensation for mental damage in breach of contract become the focus of attention.Although our country has preliminary built mental damage compensation system, but this system is imperfect. Article 22 of tort law provides that where any mental damage caused by a tort, the victim may require compensation for mental damage. But the existing law does not provide an exact answer on whether mental damage caused by default can require compensation, there are various judgments towards this kind of cases, which seriously affects the credibility and authority of judiciary. Civil law academia holds that the main function of the liability for breach of contract is for compensation, but punishment is the nature of mental damage compensation, so the compensation in breach of contract shouldn’t contain mental damage. When one party fails to perform its obligation under the contract which causes mental damage to the other party, the other party could acquire the relief of the mental damage according to theory of coincidence liability. According to this kind of theory, traditional civil law has made a division between the liability for tort and the liability for breach of contract. On the basis of this distinction, mental damage compensation in breach of contract can only be required in the realm of tort law, the article doesn’t agree with this view.Firstly, compensation for mental damage is based on the existence of spiritual damage, not based on the claim of infringement or contracts’ breach. It is an real fact that spirit is damaged in breach of contract, breaches of contracts have really caused the mental damage to the victim in some contracts such as service for wedding, funeral, travelling and so on, which is the factual basis of the relief for mental damage in breach of contract. With the expansion of contractual obligation, many contracts appeared to meet the spiritual need, the trend of the compensation for mental injury in the contract expands gradually, so it is necessary to provide the relief for victim’s mental damage in contract. Although spiritual injury is mainly a subjective feeling of the victim, but the victim can use the money to get other aspects of spiritual enjoy to reduce the mental pain.Secondly, it’s not sufficient to make up the victim’s damage through current coincidental liability. the design of coincidental liability in our country is not perfect, the system of coincidence liability can’t settle all the relevant cases, there is a blank area between liability for default and liability for tort, the current liability coincidence system can only solve the problem of a part of injuring performance. Besides, the liability for breach of contract and tort have a lot of differences concerning constitutive elements, burden of proof and so on, it is possible to force the parties to give up some contract benefits through the infringement lawsuit.In the end, there is the need to build up a unified system of civil liability. Current system only recognizes mental damage compensation in infringement lawsuit but holds negative attitude towards the compensation for mental damage in breach of contract, which is contrary to the unity and coordination of civil liability system. In addition, the compensation for damage as an independent form of civil liability is shared by liability for breach of contract and liability for infringement in common, both of the liability should follow the principle of full compensation. The liability for breach of contract also should includes mental damage according to the principle of complete compensation, no matter what kind of illegal act causing the damage.Therefore, our country should set up the system of mental damage compensation in breach of contract. When time comes, we can establish the system in the civil code in the form of law. At this stage, we can establish the system by amending the relevant provisions of the contract law or the relevant judicial interpretation. Besides, Lose can be interpreted to include property damage and mental damage in order to supply the legal basis on compensation for mental damage in breach of contract. Specifically, I think we should build a principle for mental damage compensation in contract which is not allowed in general but allowed in exception. In order to prevent mental damage compensation for default from being abused, we can use some legal measures and type research on the contract to strictly control the application of mental damage compensation for default. In conclusion, the article mainly proves the necessity and feasibility of mental damage compensation for default and put forward some suggestions for the construction of the system.