The Study Of Punitive Damages In The Field Of Labor Law

Punitive damages is the amount of money beyond the actual property loss,which is adjudicated to plaintiff based on malicious interference caused bydefendants. Its main legislative purpose is to punish and intimidate illegal behavior.The provision forty-nine in Consumer’s Interest Protection Law is established sincethe year of1994. In the following more than twenty years, punitive damages is wellperfected in legislative area, which experienced from the single provision to theregulation system. The theoretical area consider the meaning of ‘damages’ as civilliability. However, in terms of legislative purpose, its nature and function, it can bedefined as social law because punitive damages has the nature of private law andpublic law. Labor Law is the representative law in social law. Though there areplenty of regulations about compensation, the Labor Law do not point out whetherthe extra times of compensation is punitive damages. In accordance with thegeneralized and specific logic, this paper discussed the application of punitivedamages from four aspects.Part one: the generalized principle on punitive damages. By analyzing theconcept both in American law and English law, it introduced the writer’sunderstanding to punitive damages. After discussing the nature of punitive damages,the paper paved the way to verify the application in Labor Law. Then, throughrefining the universal function of punitive damages, it expounded the rationality ofpunitive damages.Part two: the theoretical foundation of the introduction of punitive damages. Interms of administrative department, employers and employees, the writer argued thenecessity to introduce the punitive damages into Labor Law. Then it discussed thethe necessity to introduce the punitive damages into Labor Law from the aspects ofpunishing employers and rationality of adjudicating compensation to employees. Atlast, it elaborated that punitive damages can be applied to labor contract law andlabor standard. Part three: the practical analysis of punitive damages in Labor Law. In LaborContract Law, three provisions are concerned with excessive compensation. Amongthose provisions,“double salaries” and the item eighty-five are punitive damages,but the item eighty-seven is not.Part four: Punitive damages should be further established and applicable in thefield of our Labor standard law. In our country labor law system, the most basicstatus law is the labor standards law, and serious infringement behavior in the fieldof labor law is the violation of the labor standards, so the labor standards law needsthe introduction of punitive damages. This paper demonstrated the establishmentand application of punitive damages in the field of the labor standards law from thereasons, the applicable conditions, the scope of compensation, compensationpayment, the compensation attribution. Those aspects would perfect the system ofpunitive damages in Labor Law.