Studies On Vehicle Devaluation Damages In The Traffic Accident

With the economic and social development,there are more and more vehicles in the public domain.Frequent traffic accidents have brought about new legal issues---compensation for loss of devaluation caused by traffic accidents.At present,there is no consensus on the legal nature and the compensability of this loss between theorists and judicial practitioners.Based on the status quo of legal regulations,this article will take cases as the starting point,proceeding from the integration of judicial judgments of various courts,clarifying the differences between judiciary practice and theoretical research on the determination of vehicle impairment losses and combing underlying causes arising from the differences,and put forward the author' own view on the limitation of the scope of compensation for devaluation loss of vehicles in traffic accidents.This article is divided into three parts.The first chapter is the status of the dispute.Through the analysis and summary of 129 judgment documents,the author has made statistics on the conflicts in trial practice and sorted out the reasons for the support and the objections to the compensation for devaluation loss of vehicles.Otherwise,the derogation problem widely existed in the real estate field has the reference value to the compensation of the devaluation of vehicles.The second chapter,research on whether vehicle devaluation loss should be compensated,including the analysis of the bifurcation point and demonstration of the compensation for devaluation loss of vehicles.Through sorting out the focus of the controversy in the previous chapter,the disagreements are summed up in five major aspects,which are mainly confined to whether the loss exists or not,the nature of the loss,whether there is a legal basis,who is the compensator and whether the loss is determinable,and then the author comes to the conclusion that "the loss of devaluation of vehicles is compensable." On the first dispute,the existence of devaluation loss,this dispute mainly focused on the understanding of “Restoration” of Article 117 of "General Principles of Civil Law",as well as the objectivity of “Depreciation loss in transaction”.The nature of devaluation loss is the most important disagreement.It is a common logic to conclude that it is a "Direct Loss" or "Indirect Loss" or "Pure Economic Loss" to determine whether it is compensated.This article made it clear that the devaluation loss of vehicles is a direct property loss caused by traffic accidents,but according to the author's humble opinion,the property that is direct or indirect loss does not in fact affect the compensation for the loss of devaluation.Whether there is a legal basis,that is,from the existing legal framework to find the basis for supporting compensation.About the "compensator",this difference is mainly for that many insurance companies are exempted from liability for loss of devaluation of the vehicle in their contracts,the author will demonstrate the validity of the insurance exemption clauses;Whether the devaluation loss can be determined,in fact,is about the proof of evidence and methods of appraisal under objective conditions in the present society,there is no legal value of discussion.The third chapter is the limitation of the scope of compensation,although the author agrees with the principle of “full compensation” for vehicles,but in view of the pursuit of fair and equitable justice of the law,we must seek balance of interests between the protection of victims' rights and freedom of infringer,moreover,the solution to the problem of devaluation of luxury cars in special circumstances is particularly complicated.Therefore,the scope of damages for traffic accident infringement should be limited.