Research On The Compensation Fund System Of Mass Torts

Since the advent of the theory of social risk spreading, the remedy systems for mass torts have been constantly reformed. There are different kinds of remedies for mass torts that have already been used internationally, such as social security, liability insurance, compensation fund, public welfare assistance and so on. With the longest history in the area of the law of mass torts, damages compensation is enduring and constantly updated, in order to seek justice and efficiency for the remedy system. This paper mainly focuses on the compensation fund system, discussing why the compensation fund becomes our preferred option when facing mass torts and how it provides relief for victims.In the first part, the paper explains how the compensation fund becomes a new alternative to solve the problem of mass torts and its competitive advantages. Compensation fund not only has been highly evaluated in practice, but also breaks the predicaments of domestic mass tort remedies in its value expression and implementation. Considering the distinctive characteristics of mass torts, such as involving a large number of victims, longer latency, complicated causal relationship, huge amount of damages and so on, the traditional relief systems in China can not handle the issues of mass torts relief, although diversified relief systems have their own advantages. Compensation fund becomes a preferable choice of damages relief system for mass torts due to its excellent performance in terms of emergency relief, responsibility division and compensation for latent damages.The next three parts of this paper further demonstrates the position and the nature of compensation fund system, introducing several typical mass torts that can adopt the compensation fund remedy, as well as its basic structure and specific steps. Firstly, compensation fund, as an alternative of litigation and a social assistance fund of a non-profit legal person, has a clear position in the comprehensive relief system of mass tort. Secondly, compensation fund system shall consists of the special compensation fund, government finance, recoveries and fines, and social donation. Moreover, the compensation fund shall be supervised by the Committee of Mass Torts Compensation Fund, established by the state council with specific expertise or organizations to deal with relevant issues. Only in this way can the compensation fund system show its validity, which is also the premise of achieving the goal of damages relief. Finally, this paper points out that the loss assessment and the remedy amount are technical parts of compensation fund system, both of which need further exploration of the principles and methods in practice. There are also lots of important issues being discussed in the latter parts, such as the emergency relief procedures, the principle of compensating all at once, and the compensation for public damages. The sequence and justice can be guaranteed only when the rational and effective relief procedures have been established.The improvement of national legal system is the prerequisite of the successful implementation of compensation fund system in China. The last part of this paper discusses the legislative path of the compensation fund system for mass torts relief. Mass torts are manifestations of infringement rather than a new type of infringement so that there is no need to add a special kind of infringement in the law of torts. However, because of the characteristics of mass tort and its particularity, it is necessary to clearly define the mass torts and to provide special damage relief in the law of torts. The compensation fund system shall be recognized by the slip law in terms of its function in some typical mass torts and shall be regulated by the administrative law in terms of its implementation, so that it can form a comprehensive system.