Jurisprudential Analysis Of Punitive Damages

The institution of punitive damages originated from and developed in Anglo-American Legal System. But the institution has so far been consistently rejected by the civil law country. What the important reason was the differences in legal culture of the two legal systems. Recently, the institution of punitive damages has been widely concerned because of the appearance of the massive infringement and the suitability of applying punitive compensation in product liability in the new "Tort Law".Punitive damages are additional damages in excess of the actual damages, which emphasizes the infringer should have the subjective malicious tort. Punitive damages is one kind of civil responsibility, mainly because of the system is applicable to civil procedure and fill in the gaps between the public law and private law. However, punitive damages are more inclined to the Victim satisfaction. In addition, the punitive compensation possesses compensation, punishment and incentive functions. Punitive damages mainly include two aspects:theoretical basis and social foundation. Punitive compensation system has four basic theories, such as, the theory of corrective justice, moral responsibility theory, the protection of human rights theory and the theory of fault liability. In addition, the social basis of punitive damages consists of the risk of social reality, the maintenance of social order, social needs and the civil law standard evolution constitutes. Its goal is to realize the justice of substantive, maintaining the social order, promote the market efficiency and protect the human rights. However, there is the value conflict phenomenon in the process of the implementation of the system. In this case, value conflict should follow the order of value, a balance and the proportion principle and so on. The punitive compensation value implied in the legal system, in the law should continue to improve the composition of the system requirements, the scope and amount of compensation legislation, to perfect the procedure of and compliance with emphasis on justice, and legislators and the judicial personnel must constantly improve their own legal quality...