Research On The Tort Liability Of Online Car-hailing Platforms In Traffic Accident

Along with the progress of the network technology in China,the travel mode of online car has become the mainstream travel mode.The development of online car has changed people’s traditional travel mode,provided more choices for people’s travel,reduced travel costs and shortened travel time.However,everything has two sides.While enjoying the convenient service brought by the online car ride,the resulting disputes are also increasing.In 2016,In the context of development of online car hailing but no effective legal regulations,China issued the Interim Measures on the Management of the Operation and Service of Online Rental Cars(hereinafter referred to as the "Interim Measures"),Interim Measures is China’s first car-hailing department regulation,giving ride-hailing platforms a legal identity,Confirmed the ride-hailing platform’s status as a carrier,which regulated the development of online car to a certain extent and was conducive to the handling of online car disputes.In2019,China revised the "Interim Measures" because of the adjustment of state functional departments,and the former Administration for Industry and Commerce was re-established as the Market Supervision Administration.Therefore,only the word "industry and commerce" in the "Interim Measures" was revised to market,but the substantive provisions related to online car rental were not revised.In 2020,an interpretation of the Interim Measures was published,in view of the consideration of the state to continuously optimize the business environment and promote the new pattern of comprehensive opening up,the provisions in the Interim Measures that foreign-invested enterprises should also provide the approval certificate of foreign-invested enterprises were deleted.In 2022,the Interim Measures was revised for the second time,and the revised clauses were mainly Articles 34 and 36 of Chapter VI Legal Liability.The amended article 34 makes a clearer and clearer classification of the circumstances and amount of fines,and the amended article 36 deletes the case of not carrying the Online Booking Taxi Transport Certificate and the Online Booking Taxi Driver’s Certificate as required.As the online car-hailing service is a new economic model,involving many legal subjects and forming various legal relationships,affected by the lag of legislation and other factors,when there is an infringement dispute over the online car-hailing platform in providing services,local courts have different opinions on the infringement subjects and liability,and the Interim Measures are not fully applied to make judgments,resulting in different judgment results.Based on the above problems,this paper cites two cases involving the online car-riding platform in recent years,and neither of these cases was judged by the court in accordance with the Interim Measures.Based on these two cases,this paper studies the liability of the online car-riding platform in tort liability.This paper is divided into three chapters:In the first chapter,two cases cited in this paper are briefly introduced,and the legal problems reflected in the cases are summarized.The first problem is the legal relationship between the online car platform and the driver,and the second problem is the legal status of the online car platform,and the liability for tort of the online car platform in different positions is analyzed.The second chapter analyzes the relationship between ride-hailing platforms and drivers,that is the new cooperative relationship,intermediary relationship and affiliated relationship,and extends the discussion of other mainstream views in judicial practice,that is,labor relationship,labour relation and contracting relationship.Combined with the case analysis,the mainstream views on the legal status of online car-sharing platform in judicial practice are respectively the theory of security obligor,the theory of intermediary and the theory of carrier.The third chapter analyzes the tort liability of the online car platform.This paper expounds the theoretical basis of the tort liability of the network car platform from the aspects of the consistency of operation control and operation interests and the obligation of safety guarantee.Combined with the case and the previous article,this paper discusses the tort liability of the network car platform as carrier,security obligor,employer and employer,and finally analyzes the exemption of the network car platform.