The Study Of Liability Subjects In Products Liability

Product liability law system is to regulate the product producers, sellers andother party whose defect products have resulted consumer personal or propertydamage and shall undertake civil liability. But our country’s laws does not specifywhat party are producers and sellers, in addition to the producers and sellers, whetherthere is other party should also be the subject of product liability or when it isimpossible to determine who is the producers or sellers, who shall be the subject ofproduct liability to undertake the product liability, and how to decide the litigationstatus of producers and sellers in product litigations? When the defendant who turnsout not the ultimate liability subject, should the court add other defendants or regardas the third person to participate in the litigation? The law did not give clearinstructions in these problems as well, and it is not unified in practice.The preface make an introduction of China’s current product liability stage in thesense of four development stage for a country’s product liability system, china is inthe process of advancing from the second stage towards the third stage. Therefore, inthis critical stage, it is very necessary for us to learn from developed countries productliability experiences which result from over a hundred years’ development.In the first chapter, this paper elaborates the concept and nature of productliability. Pointing out that product liability is a special kind of tort liability which isdifferent from product quality liability. The liability subjects of product liability arethe person that takes the responsibility to restitution of defect product damages. in theend of this chapter, the paper states the significance of the study of the liabilitysubjects in product liability.The second chapter apply the comparative analysis method, make anintroduction of the United States and European Union product liability legal systemand Chinese current product liability legislations, through the reference to foreignlegislation and judicial practice, compared with China’s liability subjects of productliability, the subjects of liability in products liability in our country and abroad ofshare some similarities and still have many differences.The third chapter, through the cooperation and summarization of the legislationof the United States and the European Union, this paper propose the suggestions toimprove the liability subjects of products liability in our country in term of: a clear definition of the scope of producers and sellers; raw material and component partmanufactures and sellers shall be regarded as liability subjects; wholesalers,distributors and retailers shall all assumed as product liability subjects. In addition,when the liability subjects of product liability are impossible to define, this papersuggests that the principle of "market share" liability under joint infringementresponsibility theory should be applied.The conclusion in the end of this paper states the importance of the study ofproduct liability subject under the circumstance of China be a member of WTO andplays an important role in the world’s trading. It also has a special meaning for thehealth and continuous development of China’s market economy.