Applicability Of Emergency Aid Provider’s Impunity In The PRC Civil Law

Article 184 of General Provisions of Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China(along with article 184 of Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China)is structured as an impunity which disregards negligence.Numerous academic opinions have been offered to get rid of such structure,but they failed to be persuasive enough.The article’s rightfulness is in doubt as the academic community hasn’t elaborated its rational basis successfully.However,the academic community’s attempts to identify any legal loophole are also unconvincing.The article’s scope of application should be narrowed in three aspects.Firstly,it shouldn’t be applied to intentionally caused damage.An actor’s intention to cause damage is the rule’s negative constitutive element.This restrictive interpretation is a result of a legal interpretation in a narrow sense rather than a teleological reduction.Secondly,the article’s scope of application should be limited to interests facing an immediate danger which the emergency aid provider tries to save.Interests not in danger of immediate threats are beyond the article’s scope of application.Such interpretation is a teleological reduction from a perspective of consequence.Thirdly,the article mainly applies to damage caused by the initiation of an aid(i.e.,taking charge of others’ business from the perspective of negotiorum gestio).The phrase “voluntarily conduct” in the article generally doesn’t cover follow-up aids.While an aid provider is legally justified to cease his management,follow-up aids can still meet the constitutive element requirement of “voluntarily conduct”.Such interpretation is a teleological reduction from a perspective of the action itself.In conclusion,article 184 of the Civil Code only applies to damage unintentionally caused by the initiation of an aid and follow-up aids with the liberty to abort,when the emergency would result in the same damage in the first place.The article’s two rational bases are as follows.Firstly,in an emergency aid scenario,when it comes to damage’s compensability,the emergency that triggered the aid should be recognized as the kind of hypothetical cause(aka reserved cause)that grants impunity.Thus,while there is no damage in terms of law as article 184 is applied,there is no room for the concept of negligence to function as a constitutive element.Besides,utilizing the concept of gross negligence as a constitutive element in the matter of emergency aid provider’s impunity will lead to the rule’s confusing double evaluation.Therefore,in the scope of interests facing an immediate danger,the article’s current structure,impunity disregarding negligence,is appropriate.Secondly,it is encouragable to provide aid when there is no duty(or there is a weak duty)to do so.Said impunity is the law’s reward for those actors when they cause damage unintentionally.The rule’s rightfulness lies in the fact that aid provider voluntarily places himself in a legally obligated status with potential liability,so he can rightfully be in a better legal status when that happens.