Distribution Of The Burden Of Proof In "No Legal Reasons" Of Unjust Enrichment

The unjust enrichment system in civil law has a long history.It can date back to Roman law called condictio.As an extremely important system in civil law,unjust enrichment which closely related to the interests of the parties is aimed at regulating property changes that do not have legal reasons in private law.However,how to distribute the burden of proof of “no legal reasons” which is one of the four elements of the unjust enrichment is not clearly defined in relevant statutory regulations in China.The theoretical and practical circles are also confused with this and unable to reach unanimous conclusions.Besides,the complexity of the relevant cases leads to a chaotic situation in judicial practice that the same case exists different sentence,which undoubtedly undermines the fairness and justice of the case and causes the judicial authority to be challenged.Without legal fairness,there is no justice of society.Therefore,it is of great theoretical and practical value to study the distribution of the burden of proof of “no legal reasons”.In addition to the introduction and conclusion,this article is divided into four parts:The first part: Firstly,through summarizing the data and enumerating the sample of cases point out the dilemma that the distribution of the Burden of proof of “no legal reasons” in unjust enrichment cases is inconsistent in current trial practice.Then,elaborates two different opinions of the theoretical community about this topic,the claimant should bear the burden of proof and the beneficiary should bear the burden of proof.Finally,based on the comprehensive analysis of the two doctrines,puts forward the idea of categorizing the unjust enrichment firstly and then researching the burden of proof of “no legal reasons.”The second part: According to the civil substantial law,the academic community categorizes the “no legal reasons” of unjust enrichment into the payment type of unjust enrichment and non-payment type of unjust enrichment.On the basis of the categorization,the payment type can be further divided into three types and the non-payment type lots of types with different classification criteria.This provides the research method of the burden of proof of “no legal reason”.The third part: Review the academic viewpoints that beneficiary should take the responsibility of bearing the burden of proof in the payment type of unjust enrichment,and explain the reasons.Then from the perspective of the “die normentheorie” and the subject which change the status of the property,combined with the case,get the conclusion that the burden of proof belongs to the claimant.In order to alleviate the burden of proof of the claimant,the beneficiary should reasonably perform the obligation of the detailed description.The fourth part: According to the “die normentheorie” theory,“the menvertheilungs theorie” and the purpose of relevant substantive law,explore the issue of distributing the burden of proof in non-payment type of unjust enrichment which results from claimant's behavior and conclude that the claimant bears the burden of proof of such unjust enrichment.Then,cite a case to study the distribution of the burden of proof in non-payment type of unjust enrichment which is not related to claimant's behavior,and conclude that the beneficiary takes the responsibility of the burden of proof in such kind of non-payment unjust enrichment.Finally,in the situation of one party claims the case is payment type of unjust enrichment and the other party claims non-payment type,combine the scholar viewpoints with the judicial cases to give the clue of the answer.