Tort Liability In Cases Of Special Constitution’s Victim

Recently,a large number of cases about compensation for damages caused by tortfeasor to person with special constitution emerge in litigation.In such cases,owing to the speciality of the victim’s constitution,the damage caused by the combination of tort and victim’s special constitution is far more serious than in the general situation.Both questions of fault and casuation are not easy to identify.From the perspective of comparative study,foreign jurisdictions have paid great attention to the tort liability in cases of special constitution victims.In practice,courts agree to rule such cases under the eggshell skull principle,which means,no matter how special the victim’s constitution is,the tortfeasor cannot defend with but for the eggshell skull plaintiff,there won’t be such damage.The tortfeasor must take the victim as he finds him.While in Japan,courts apply the rule of contributory negligence by analogy to those cases.In China,due to the fact that there is no law but for the guiding case of No.24,different courts take different attitudes towards this issue.In some cases,the court makes the judgment according to the guiding case of No.24 and awards full compensation.While in other cases,the court reduces the compensation in relation to the special constitution based on the theory of force of cause.In addition,some courts apply the principle of fairness.Different understanding of the effect of victim’s special constitution leads to inconsistence of court decisions in similar cases.Why did the court bother to refuse to apply the rule ofthe guiding case of No.24? Why the guiding case of No.24 can not be extended to all the plaintiff with special constitution? What is the most controversial issue after the issuance of the guiding case of No.24? For writing this paper,I have searched and analyzed a large number of cases and articles,and then find that the effective solution to deal with this issue is to test whether the victim’s special constitution affects fault or factual causation or legal causation.And if yes,how it works? This paper is made up of the introduction and four specific chapters.The introduction reveals problems in judicial practice after the issuance of the guiding case of No.24,also clarifies the main content and significance of this paper.The first chapter makes a detailed analysis of the text of the guide case No.24 and the original judgment,traces the the eggshell skull principle,combs domestic cases,points out the confusion existing in litigation,and also identifies the concept of special constitution.The second chapter analyzes fault as an element of torts,applies the criteria of fault to test whether the special constitution affect fault.The third chapter discusses factual causation,applies the criteria of factual causation to test whether the special constitution affect factual causation under different types of causation including overdetermined cause,overtaking cause and proportional liability.The fourth chapter is based on the third chapter,applies the criteria of legal causation to test whether the special constitution affects the legal causation under overdetermined cause and overtaking cause.