Study About Burden Of Proof Of Causation In Environmental Tort

Tort Liability Law and previous relevant judicial interpretations hold a completely inverted position on the burden of proof of causation of environmental tort,but this distribution of burden of proof has been generally resisted by judicial practice.The Interpretation of Several Questions Concerning the Application of Law in Environmental Tort Liability Disputes issued by the Supreme People's Court tries to change this,but there are still many ambiguities and contradictions which need to be clarified urgently.Fundamentally,the key question is whether the plaintiff or the defendant bears the burden of proof as the core element of causation.Under the background of unreasonable consideration of burden of proof distribution in substantive law norms,in order to solve this key problem,drawing lessons from the important facts theory of Japanese law has become a suitable choice.Therefore,we should start with the elements of causation itself,and in hermeneutics,we can concretely translate them into the corresponding evaluation based on facts,evaluation hindering facts and empirical rules,and then apply them to the analysis of causation at various stages.First of all,in theory,the civil law system generally divides causation into "causation of the establishment of liability" and "causation of the scope of liability".The former is to determine the perpetrator,which is qualitative;the latter is to discuss which aspects of compensation by the perpetrator,which is a quantitative issue,and the relationship between the two is progressive.This distinction makes it possible to separate the discussion of "qualitative" and "quantitative" in causality by distinguishing "the establishment of liability" from "the scope of liability" in the discussion of causation,and to clarify the functions of their respective theories.Secondly,from the whole process of pollutants flowing into the environment and causing property and personal injury,the chain of causality of liability includes five basic facts,namely,discharge facts,dissemination facts,pollution facts in the place where the damage occurred,exposure facts and damage facts.These five facts do not exist in isolation.One damage result is the result of the above facts.Logically,based on the above-mentioned causal chain,there are two stages at the level of liability establishment: the first stage is the judgment of causal relationship between pollution source arriving at the site of damage,which can be called causal relationship of arrival,and the solution is whether the pollutants in the place of damage are discharged by the discharger;the second stage is the causal relationship between pollutants in the place of damage and the damage to the receptor.The judgment of the relationship can be called the causal relationship of injury.It solves the problem whether the damage is caused or caused by the pollutants found in the place where the damage occurred.In the stage of causation of injury,tort cases can be divided into common sense,scientifically determined and scientifically uncertain.According to different types of tort cases,the plaintiff and defendant should bear different burden of proof,while causation of injury in scientifically uncertain cases is the difficulty of proof.Finally,from the perspective of legal policy,infringers do not have to compensate for all damages,but can filter out unreasonable claims for damages through the causality of the scope of liability,so as to control the scope of liability.Therefore,the theory of equivalent causality has become an important criterion for judging the causality of the scope of liability.In judicial practice,most only consider one aspect in judging "equivalence".That is,the act increases the objective possibility of damage,but because of the uncertainty of the concept of "equivalence",it is easy to over-relax the grasp of "increasing the objective possibility of damage results",and then make the causality of the scope of liability too easy to establish,if not from it.On the other hand,the limitation of liability will cause the perpetrator to be easily blamed.To solve this problem,we can draw lessons from the theory of predictability,that is,anyone should and can predict the scope of responsibility he may assume.This doctrine not only avoids the actor's legal burden beyond his reasonable expectation,but also makes the victim's damaged interests get the maximum compensation.In conclusion,every step of the whole process of proof of causation in environmental tort is an independent allocation of burden of proof.The proof of causation in the former step is the logical basis of the proof of causation in the latter step.Without the proof of the former step,the proof in the latter step is meaningless.The analysis of each step above is based on Interpretation of Environmental Tort by Article 6 and Article 7 of the Interpretation of Several Questions Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Environmental Tort Liability Disputes.Although in some specific cases,these steps of causation judgment may not be completely clear,the theoretical description of the type of causation and the process of judgment is actually hidden in the analysis of each case.