The Principal's Liability Attribution Of Agency By Estoppel

In the modern society with prosperity of market economy,agency is a kind of efficient and convenient trading mode.While agency by estoppel is a key component of agency,which plays an important role in protecting the interests of bona fide counterpart and maintaining successful market trades.However,the argument regarding to constituent elements of agency by estoppels always exists.According to this paper,under the circumstance of lacking liability attribution to right appearance of right of agency for a principal,agency by estoppels should not be constituted.Then it is not reasonable for the principal to fulfill the contract and bear the adverse consequences.Therefore,we should take the fact if a principal has liability attribution or not into consideration on constituent elements of agency by estoppel.Apart from Summary and Conclusion,this paper is composed of five parts.The first part starts from the research status of agency by estoppel,mainly discussing the research status of agency by estoppel,judicial situations and the drawbacks of legal regulations in China.Meanwhile this part discusses two theories existing in academic group: “Mono-constituent element theory” and “Dualconstituent element theory”.Through analyzing the pros and cons of the two theories,this part raises the necessity of incorporating principal's liability attribution into agency by estoppel.The second part confirms the discussion foundation of principal's liability attribution.It starts from the general theories of fault liability and non-fault liability,combines the concrete analysis of liability attribution,and then discusses that liability attribution is the justification basis of responsibility bearing for a principal.The third part centers around the comparison/analysis between the difference of Bona Fide Acquisition(BFA)vs.principal's action required by agency by estoppel and the difference of legal consequences,then raising the opinion that incorporating principal's liability attribution into agency by estoppels is much more urgent and reasonable.The forth part discusses the judgment of principal's liability attribution.It starts from three principles: “Incentive Principle”,“Justifiable Reliance Principle” and“Risk Allocation Principle”,mainly discussing the concrete judgment of risk allocation and liability attribution,as well as the behavior patterns of principal's liability attribution.The fifth part mainly discusses the distribution of burden of proof on “Risk Principle” in principal's liability attribution of agency by estoppel.This paper discusses the distribution of burden of proof in detail,resolving the problems of imposing the counterparts' burden of proof in juridical practices.