The Empirical Research On Punitive Damages For Personal Injury Caused By Product

Although the punitive damages system for product infringement has a history of more than 10 years,the current norms only have interval provisions on the amount of punitive damages for personal infringement of defective products,and there are no specific rules for adjudication.Although there are many theories about the amount of punitive damages,there is no empirical research and judgment.An empirical study was carried out on the cases of personal injury caused by products.According to the retrieval of judgment document network,there were 48 judgment cases in total.Based on the measurability of data in the judgment documents and the importance of factors in the theory,the empirical analysis takes the amount of loss of the victim,the level of casualties of the victim,the amount of punitive damages claimed by the plaintiff and the price of the products involved as explanatory variables,and the amount of punitive damages awarded by the judge as the explanatory variable to structure the data of the judgment case.The empirical study found that there is a high correlation between the amount of judgment and the amount of original request;The product price is completely irrelevant to the amount of judgment;Although there is a correlation between the victim’s casualties and the amount of the victim’s loss on the amount of the judgment,this correlation is not independent.After excluding the influence of the related claim amount,they are also not related to the amount of the judgment.Shen Yan,from the empirical point of view,when judging,the judge focused on ruling the amount of punitive damages based on the amount of the original request,without considering the factor of product price,or the loss suffered by the victim and the casualties of the victim.From the occurrence path of judgment thinking and the empirical data,the amount of loss and casualty level of the victim are positively correlated with the amount of punitive compensation requested by the plaintiff,and they indirectly affect the judgment amount through the variable of the amount requested by the plaintiff.From the perspective of judgment theory,in the judgment of punitive damages,the judge’s judicial logic is the subjective "anchored" price and the benefit measurement of the "price dispute" between the two parties.Although the ruling of the amount of punitive damages meets the requirements of norms,it is disturbed by many subjective factors and lacks sufficient legitimacy and rationality.However,the current norms have not established a specific system of relevant judgments.In view of this,they can be standardized through three schemes:promoting the systematic construction of punitive compensation guidance cases,opening the evaluation process of punitive compensation judgments,and improving the consultation mechanism of people’s jurors participating in the amount of punitive compensation judgments,so as to realize the unity of predictability and acceptability of judgments.