Study On The Legal Liability Of Punitive Damages For Food Safety

The historical evolution of legal responsibility for food safety in China shows that punitive damages have been accepted by China's legal system.Punitive damages system is concerned about the game among producer,government and consumer behind punitive damages.Consumers often choose unsafe foods because of their Information asymmetry.Producers and sellers are "alliances" based on certain business ethics.The externalities of food make the producers and consumers form a two-way game around food safety.In the food market,there may be two problems:government failure and market failure.According to the theory of public goods,the government should supervise the food producers to produce safe food to promote the public welfare.And consumers are also actively urging the government to fulfill its responsibilities in order to better carry out social supervision.The experience of the United States and Germany shows that punitive damages can be applied in both civil law system and common law system.The punitive damages of the United States provide the way of thinking and method for the improvement of the punitive damages of our country.Germany from the beginning of the rejection to the gradual fact of recognition,that our country follows the punitive damages system in the legal system is possible.But whether the punitive compensation system can really play its due role in the field of food safety depends on the judicial application.At present,there are some problems in the application of punitive compensation in the field of food safety,such as the limited subject of right,the difficulty of burden of proof and the unreasonable amount of compensation.From the perspective of China's Economic Law,the legal regulation of food safety should be based on the values of fairness,safety,efficiency and order of economic law;To safeguard the formal and substantive fairness of more food consumers;to invert the burden of proof to accentuate the adverse consequences for producers and sellers in Proving Food Safety Issues;Finally,the amount of compensation should be scientifically quantified and elastically reformed.