A Research Of The Liability Of Minors For Torts

Along with the rapid economic development of modern society,minors are more easily able to participate in social economic activity.The numbers of infringement cases caused by minor children have increased significantly every year.More people have begun to emphasize that there is a need to balance interests of minors,guardians and victims.The logic of bearing liabilities in civil judicial practice,different scholars' theoretical interpretations of Article 32 of the Tort Law and the opinions to perfect that exist great differences.The liability of minors for torts has not been made perfect under Article 32 of the Tort Law which has easily followed the essential factors of liability and the logic of bearing liability prescribed by Article 133 of the General Principles of the Civil Law.This Article has carried on the analysis and the research from three parts,from the the liability of minors separately,the liability of guardians and the burden sharing between minors and their guardians.This Article has sorted out problems on either of those fronts and made jurisprudential analysis on the problems to clarify the constitutive conditions of infringement liability of minors and guardians and the burden sharing between minors and their guardians.The logic of bearing liabilities under Article 32 of the Tort Law is comparatively clear by literal interpretation.Subjects of juvenile tort liabilities usually are minor children and their guardians.If the minor child is affluent in worldly good,he or she would assume prior compensation liability.The guardians of the minor child would only hold supplementary liability when the minor child has no responsible property or the funds the minor child owns are not enough for compensating the loss.In these cases,the guardians should undertake non-fault responsibility.In other words,that the guardians have fully execute their obligations could not be their exoneration matter,and if the guardians have fully done his duty of guardianship,his civil liability might be appropriately reduced.As far as the constitutive conditions of infringement liability of minors,the main problem is that minors' property is adopted as one of the elements of constitution of liability in our country.In the mean while,there is no natural person's capability system for civil liability and no need to examine the requirement of fault on which has no jurisprudential evidences.This regulation might bring about inequitable result,such as a minor child with no ability to recognize the legal consequence of the action but lots of assets might assume massive compensation liability because of one insignificant offence.As for the constitutive conditions of infringement liability of guardians,one problem is what extent of responsibility the guardians should bear to depends on minors' property.It does not meet the functions of torts law of preventing damage.Since one of the motivations for the setting-up of the regulation of guardian's responsibilities is ensuring guardians fulfilling their duties of guardianship actively in order to prevent the interest of third party from being infringed by minor children.And the theoretical basis of infringement liability of guardians is the breach of guardianship.The other problem is that the principle with which the guardians undertake responsibilities should apply to the principle of faultlessness.That makes the connection between the theoretical basis of infringement liability of guardians and the establishment of the actual liability reduce.For the burden sharing between minors and their guardians,the main problem is that if the minor child is affluent in worldly good,he or she would assume prior compensation liability and the guardians of the minor child would only hold supplementary liability when the minor child has no responsible property or the funds the minor child owns are not enough for compensating the loss.The regulation aims to protect the interest of the injured party sufficiently.But the responsibility share between minors and their guardians seems to be short of theoretical support and exerts unfavorable influences on minors' healthy growth,guardianship's implementation and the development of society.The legal provision could not make sense via the theory of legal interpretation,so the system of the liability of minors for torts could only be consummated by amending the law.As far as the constitutive conditions of infringement liability of minors,minors' subjective components,including minor's capacity for liability and minors' fault elements,should be considered.As for the constitutive conditions of infringement liability of guardians,the principle of liability of tort for guardians could apply the principle of presumption of fault.When the guardians have proved that they had fulfilled their guardianship,the guardians could claim exemption.The guardianship that should be taken in consideration should be not limited just to controlling minors' certain behaviors that could cause harm to any person but be expanded to the training and supervision of minors in daily life.For the burden sharing between minors and their guardians,the responsibilities that minors and guardians undertake are completely independent of one another and unreal joint.When guardians and minors do not bear any liabilities for tort,judges should consider the economic situation of victims,guardians and minors and guardians and minors should bear fair liability in order to protect innocent victims.