Research On Contributory Negligence Principles In Tort Law

The contributory negligence principles in Tort Law mean that you can reduce or eliminate other party's liability for damages if the victim is also responsible for the occurrence or expansion of the damages.Contributory negligence is an important system in the law of compensation for damages.At present,the legislation of each country has stipulated the contributory negligence principles.The article 131 st of General Principles of the civil Law of the People's Republic of China,the article twenty-sixth and article twenty-seventh of the Tort Law of the People's Republic of China,judicial interpretation of the Supreme People's court and some of China's laws and regulations all stipulate the detailed rules of contributory negligence.However,there are still many disputes in theory and practice.What is its theoretical foundation? What is the criterion for the judgment of the victim's contributory negligence,and it is the same as that of the infringer? In the tort of several persons,how to reasonably share the responsibility between the victim and the infringer if the victim has contributory negligence? And whether the rules of contributory negligence can be applied to the field of no fault liability,and if so,how to allocate the unfortunate damages between the relevant parties? And whether the “negligence” of contributory negligence principles can only be the negligence of the victim,whether the other person's negligence can be attributed to the victim and then brings the application of the rules of negligence? Does the victim have the corresponding ability to bear the negligence? The focus of this paper is to analyze these problems,to clarify the logic of the application of the rules of contributory negligence.This paper consists of three parts: introduction,text and conclusion.The text consists of four parts.The first part discusses the development and legal basis of the rules of contributory negligence.The development of the rules of contributory negligence part is combing with the development of rules of contributory negligence at home and abroad since the Rome period to the modern law,which will bring overall grasp of the contributory negligence principles.Overall,both in the continental law system or Anglo American law system,the developing trend of the contributory negligence principles is that the rules assigning damages between the victim and infringer become more sophisticated.Our country's contributory negligence rules inherited from the continental law system also has its own characteristics that contributory negligence rules are provided separately in the field of contract law and tort law rules.The theory part is about the introduction and analysis of the relevant theoretical basis of the contributory negligence rules on the basis of the overall grasp of its development at home and abroad,and ends up with the conclusion that the basic theory of the contributory negligence principles in tort law is fairness and justice.The second part is about the application of the contributory negligence rules in the field of fault liability.In the application in the field of fault liability,main disputes are definition of negligence,how to make a reasonable distribution of damages between victims and infringers.According to the tort law and the legal basis of contributory negligence rules,infringer's liability system in tort law and the contributory negligence rules are similar;therefore we should further improve the contributory negligence rule according to the structure of the infringer's responsibility system.As for the negligence,its criterion is similar with the infringer's fault liability criterion,namely the criterion of conduct built according to law and rational man's obligations.As for the assignment of liability,the rules of tort which is stipulated to deal with the cases where there are several infringers,can be applied to the situation where the victim's negligence and the infringer's fault together cause the occurrence of the damages,so that the damages can be rationally assigned,namely through the comprehensive comparison of the degree of fault of the parties,the causation and other factors to determine the liability proportion which the victims and infringers must undertake.At the same time,in the situation where there are two or more infringers,in order to clear the comparison object,the relationship between the offenders and the relationship between the offenders and the victims should be analyzed.Only by this can the proportion of tort liability be determined.The third part is about the application of the contributory negligence rules in the field of no fault liability.The application of contributory negligence rules in the field of no fault liability is one of the focuses in the theoretical field.In this field,the main dispute is whether or not the contributory negligence rules can be applied in no fault liability.In addition,no matter in theory or in practice,there is little research on the specific application of contributory negligence rules in the field of no fault liability.In view of this,this part begins with justification of the application of the contributory negligence rules in the field of no fault liability.And the following is sort-out of the relevant stipulations of the Tort Law of the People's Republic of China,relevant laws and regulations,to clear the relationship between relevant stipulations of our current tort law.Final part is analyzing the factors which should be considered when we determine liability proportion,and the legislative mode of liability proportion determination.The fourth part is about imputed contributory negligence.The question whether the "negligence" is limited to the victim's negligence and the question whether the negligence of others matter a lot in the contributory negligence principles,no matter for the victim or for the infringer,have important significance.After in-depth analysis,this paper's conclusion is that the contributory negligence should not be limited to the victim's own negligence,but also not too much to expand: as long as the third party and the victim have certain relationship,the negligence of the third party will be imputed to the victim.The imputed contributory negligence in the tort law of our country should be limited to employee's negligence and the negligence of the direct victim who dies because of infringer's negligence.The employer and the indirect victim shall be responsible for the negligence of the employee and the direct victim.At the same time,both the liability of the guardian and the liability of the ward are personal liability,so in the cases relevant to guardian's liability and the liability of the ward,there is no imputed contributory negligence.