On The Personal Damage Tort Liability Of High Voltage Electric Shock

Personal damage tort liability of high voltage electric shock is a kind of high-risk liability.By analyzing cases searched on the “China Judgments Online”,it is found that there are series phenomenon in personal damage tort liability of high voltage electric shock cases,such as multiple causes of the accident,non-individual responsible person of infringement,the differences between different laws,the differences of court discretions and so on.Because the high voltage electric shock is a special kind of tort liability,and many courts did not understand and applicated laws correctly in practice,when there is a conflict of content in different laws,some courts cannot resolve differences according to rules of the law.First of all,there are different provisions about the responsible person in high voltage electric shock cases in Tort Liability Law,General Principles of Civil Law and Electricity Law.According to the principle of “special law is superior to general law” and “new law is superior to old law”,the Tort Liability Law should be applied,and the high voltage operator shall bear no-fault liability for the damage.However,in judicial practice,some courts still rely on the General Principles of Civil Law as the basis for referee,and some courts even rely on the Explanation of electric shock compensation which has been abolished for referee.Secondly,in view of the high-risk liability applying the principle of no fault liability,for the liability of the high voltage operations in high voltage electric shock cases,there are only the following three prerequisites regardless fault exist or not:(1)A high voltage operation;(2)The actually damage;(3)Relationship between the high voltage operation and the damage.According to Article 73 of the Tort Liability Low,the exemption of operator include the following cases:(1)Force majeure;(2)Victims deliberately.According to the Understanding and Application of the Articles,the majority of the courts in judicial practice deliberately include:(1)Victims suicide or self-injury behavior by high voltage power facilities;(2)The victim is engaged in illegal and criminal activities related to high voltage operation,such as theft ordestruction of high voltage facilities.But,because the basic idea of dangerous liability lies in how to allocate the “unfortunate damage”,in addition to the victims suicide or self-injury behavior by high voltage power facilities,any other reasons should not be used to exempt high-risk liability of the operation.Finally,there will be complex reasons and non-individual responsible person of infringement.If there is another person's fault in a case,whether the operator's liability should be reduced?In other words,how to allocate liability between the operator and the other person?In the judicial practice,usually,the court would allocate liability according to the power of each Infringer for the damage.However,the Chapter 3 of the Tort Liability Law is a general clause applicable in the absence of special provisions of the law.If Chapter 9 of the Tort Liability Law provides for special mitigation,the general clause shall be excluded.Combined with the relevant provisions of Electricity Law and Electricity Supply and Use Regulations,the other person is not a statutory cause of exemption the operator's liability,and the victim and the operator who has suffered the loss have the right to claim damages to the other person.Therefore,the operator may bear the supplementary liability for the other person's fault.That is,in the case that the other person cannot compensate enough,the victim will has the right to ask for the operator for compensation.And then the operator can ask the other person for recovery.In summary,by summarizing cases and analyzing relevant laws,first of all,it can be defined that who the operator for personal damage of high voltage electric shock is.According to the actual control of high voltage activities,operators can be divided into power enterprises,power transmission enterprises and electric power user or plants.Secondly,on the basis of determining the principle of non-fault liability applicable to the damage of high voltage electric shock,by analyzing the reasons for the exemption from the faultless liability of the operator,the “victim intentionally” should only include the victim committed suicide and self-injury behavior.Victims deliberately in high-risk activities of the protected area engaged in criminal acts are not included.Then,in judicial practice,the victim's fault and the other person's fault are two mainly reasons that reducing the liability of the operators.According to the law,the victim's fault is undoubtedly the legal cause ofreducing the liability of the operator,but the other person's fault cannot be the legal-cause of reducing the operator.And the operator is responsible for the fault of the other person.Finally,the penalty for the personal damage of high voltage electric shock mainly includes property compensation and mental damage compensation.And property compensation includes general compensation for personal injury,compensation for disability,and compensation for death.The amount of compensation for mental damages should be based on the subjective state of the infringer and the infringing act,the circumstances of the inflicted person's disability and the suffering of the victim and the economic capacity of the infringer using the judge 's discretion to sentence in 0-5 million.