Measuring damages for lost enjoyment of life: the view from the bench and the jury box

Civil jury instructions are inconsistent in defining what constitutes noneconomic damages, which may include pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life (LEL), among other injury sequelae. This inconsistency has been manifested recently in court decisions that have considered whether LEL should be treated as a separate element of noneconomic damages, distinct from pain and suffering. This paper reviews the case law on this issue and also describes a jury simulation experiment. Mock jurors awarded damages after they received instructions on noneconomic damages in which LEL was (1) not identified as a distinct element of damages; (2) defined as an element of damages distinct from pain and suffering, but participants awarded a single amount for noneconomic damages; or (3) defined as a distinct element of damages, and participants awarded separate amounts for LEL and pain and suffering. Instructions about LEL resulted in larger awards, but only when mock jurors also made a separate award for that element of damages.     

Anchoring in the Courtroom: The Effects of Caps on Punitive Damages

Responding to the perception that civil damage awards are out of control, courts and legislatures have pursued tort reform efforts largely aimed at reigning in damage awards by juries. One proposed method for reigning in civil juries is to limit, or cap, the amount that can be awarded for punitive damages. Despite significant controversy over damage awards and the civil litigation system, there has been little research focusing on the process by which juries determine damages. In particular, there is a paucity of research on the possible effects of placing caps on punitive damages. The present research examines punitive damage caps and reveals an anchoring effect of the caps on both compensatory and punitive damages. A second experiment replicates this effect and examines the moderating effect of bifurcating the compensatory and punitive damage decisions.     

Damages for Mental Distress and Bad Faith in Disability Claims

This article examines recent changes in the law in Canada in relation to the court’s willingness to acknowledge the significance of, and award compensation for, intangible loss arising from breach of contract. When a claim for benefits is wrongly refused in a disability contract, a primary goal of the contract, which is to provide peace of mind, is unrealized. Where this causes mental distress, Canadian courts are now willing to award compensation. Similarly, if an insurer conducts itself in such a manner as to attract a punitive damages award, a consideration in assessing the quantum of the award is the vulnerability of the insured. The evidentiary basis for these claims will often include expert psychological opinion. Various considerations for determining the existence, nature, and scope of the psychological issues relevant to a claim for damages for mental distress and/or punitive damages are covered in this article.     

Are Older Workers Past Their Sell‐by‐Date? A View from UK Age Discrimination Law

This article assesses the effectiveness of United Kingdom age discrimination law in protecting older workers from claims that they are less productive and perform more poorly than younger workers. The article assesses employer perceptions and the incompatibility of such perceptions with existing research and the current interpretation of age discrimination law by the CJEU and the Supreme Court which accords with such research. The effectiveness of age discrimination law in practice is assessed through an analysis of existing compensation reduction rules. The article concludes that the existing rules which allow for a reduction in compensation payable where there is a chance that the same outcome would have been reached in the absence of discrimination (the ‘chance model’) reduces the effectiveness of the existing protections. A move to a ‘certainty model’ would be less speculative, would serve the objectives of anti‐discrimination law and would reduce concerns about compatibility with EU law.     

惩罚性赔偿消费公益诉讼研究

通过个别诉讼行使惩罚性赔偿请求权,难以对经营者形成足够的威慑力,消费者协会、检察机关提起惩罚性赔偿消费公益诉讼的必要性客观存在。即使将消费者协会提起公益诉讼的"公益性职责"与检察机关提起公益诉讼的"职权"勉强解释为立法者赋予消费者协会、检察机关以形式性惩罚性赔偿请求权,以该请求权为基础的惩罚性赔偿消费公益诉讼也只是受害消费者享有的惩罚性赔偿请求权的集中行使方式。除非立法机关为消费者协会、检察机关另行创设实质性惩罚性赔偿请求权,惩罚性赔偿消费公益诉讼注定与特定受害消费者存在密切联系,无法从根本上破解惩罚性赔偿金的计算及其发放难题。因而,惩罚性赔偿消费公益诉讼对行政处罚与刑事罚金仅构成补充,在完善惩罚性赔偿消费公益诉讼制度的同时,应当强化惩罚性赔偿消费公益诉讼与其他消费者权益保护手段之间的协作机制。     

A General Clause of Punitive Damages Should Be Established in China's Future Civil Code

Punitive damages have several functions that are worthy of serious research. For instance, punitive damages could help to compensate victims for moral damages suffered and offer more sufficient ex-ante compensation in cases of wrongful death or bodily injury, thus compensating for the losses suffered by victims more completely; they could punish private wrongs more effectively and provide a means of personal revenge within the law, incidentally deterring and preventing future wrongs; they could be used to correct abuses of power or status by the rich, large corporations, or the government; and they could be used to complement criminal law, etc. In order to fully realize the advantages of this institution in the Chinese society, we should expand its application in China’s tort law and carefully design the scope of its application, including the subjects to which it would be applicable and the amounts that would be allowable. In the short term, the application of punitive damages could be expanded through specific individual legislation, increase of the amounts of compensation for mental damages in individual cases or local legislation. In the long term, a general clause on punitive damages should be established in tort law in China’s future Civil Code, stipulating that “punitive damages can be applied to those who have performed tortious acts that deserve severe moral condemnation, due to the actor’s malicious intent or indifference or disregard for others’ rights.”     

Disability,Rights, and the Construction of Sexuality in Tort Claims

This study empirically investigates how courts define sexuality of disabled persons in the absence of a formal right to sexuality. The focus of the study is tort law, a field ungoverned by direct disability rights legislation, assuming that tort law is the law of disablement as it concerns the transformative process of becoming disabled. The study investigates the types of damages courts have awarded for harm to sexual functioning, inquiring to whom and under what conditions have they been awarded. Additionally, it examines the discourse that characterizes each type of damages, and the legal, social, medical, and healthcare policy developments that have affected courts' rhetoric and reasoning. Our findings reveal shifting trends in scale, content, and inclusiveness of beneficiaries in terms of gender and age. Over time, courts have adopted a more hopeful and dynamic approach to disabled persons' sexuality while remaining within an individual‐medical framework. We suggest that these shifting trends can be linked to the slow diffusion of the social‐affirmative approach to disability, the limits of tort law as a field, and the role of healthcare policy in shaping the landscape of tort claims.     

CISG违约附加费用赔偿实证研究

违约附加费用是受损害方因对方违约而遭受的价值损失之外的损失,在实践中的表现形式是多样的。在合理和必要的前提下,作为受损害方的实际损失,违约附加费用是可以得到赔偿的。受损害方因对方违约而向第三方和有权机关承担的责任也可以作为附加费用求偿,但在合理和必要的标准外,还要特别强调其可预见性。受损害方在程序外的法律费用和雇佣收债公司的费用虽然原则上可以作为附加费用求偿,但不同裁判庭在认定标准上存在较大差异。     

Damages for Breach of Contract: Compensation, Restitution and Vindication

In this article we examine the role which vindication playsin contract damages. Vindication describes the making good ofa right by the award of an adequate remedy. We argue that, whilethe primary purpose of compensation is to provide an indemnityfor loss, an award of compensatory damages will neverthelessgenerally vindicate the right to performance of the contract.We go on to consider a distinct measure of damages, vindicatorydamages. These, we argue, are neither compensatory nor restitutionary,neither loss-based nor gain-based: they are a rights-based remedy.We then identify various situations in which the courts maybe seen to have awarded what are, in substance, vindicatorydamages. We conclude by considering the benefits which may followfrom recognition of the availability of vindicatory damagesas a contract remedy.     

论惩罚性赔偿责任的可保性

惩罚性赔偿因具有的惩罚性和吓阻性,而具有准刑事罚的性质,其责任也被认为具有准刑事责任的性质。这在学界已成共识。但惩罚性赔偿责任可否经由保险而转嫁风险,即惩罚性赔偿责任是否具有可保性,分歧甚大。美国法院也有不同做法。单纯从经济学的角度看,可以不否认惩罚性赔偿责任的可保性,但基于惩罚性赔偿制度的功能和力图实现法律价值的考量,若允许其可保,就会使惩罚性赔偿的功能丧失殆尽,致该项制度形同虚设,故其应不具有可保性。     

Governmental responsibility for victims of atomic testing: a chronicle of the politics of compensation

Since 1945 the U.S. government has conducted extensive atomic testing for purposes of protecting the national security and developing industrial uses of nuclear power. Newly available information indicates that many citizens were unwittingly harmed by exposure to radioactive fallout from this testing. The victims are pressuring the government to accept liability for its actions and offer compensation for the damages. To date, however, their efforts have been largely unsuccessful. This article analyzes the politics of the atomic compensation movement, from its beginnings through the 97th Congress. It concludes that, barring the enactment of specific legislation, atomic victims stand little chance of gaining financial compensation or moral satisfaction.     

The Impact of Psychological Injuries on Sexual Harassment Determinations

Although a plethora of studies focus on jury decision making in sexual harassment cases, few studies examine damage award assessments in such suits, and even fewer explore the impact of psychological injury on jurors’ liability and damage award assessments. In the present study, 342 undergraduates read a hostile environment sexual harassment case that manipulated the plaintiff’s psychological injury level (severe vs. mild vs. control) to investigate whether males and females made different damage decisions. Males using a reasonable person standard found more liability as the severity of the plaintiff’s psychological injury increased. However, males using a reasonable woman standard found less liability with the addition of any psychological injury information. Similarly, for mild and severe injuries, males using the reasonable woman standard awarded lower damages than males using the reasonable person standard. Females tended to find more harassment than males, but psychological injury and legal standard had little impact on females’ legal decisions. We discuss these findings in light of the positive relationship often observed between the plaintiff’s injury severity level and pro-plaintiff verdicts.     

Rail Franchises,Competition and Public Service

The use of franchises to deliver rail services has raised major problems. Franchises restrict competition in the market, whilst competitive bidding for franchises has met with difficulties, notably in relation to risk transfer and the recent use of short‐term contracts that have not been awarded competitively. Further, franchise agreements are detailed and highly stipulative and do not achieve the flexibility and opportunities for innovation originally intended. This reflects an underlying lack of trust resulting from the arrangements adopted on privatisation. By contrast, in Sweden regional services have been procured through contracts with limited risk transfer, and in Italy provision of services has been entrusted to a dominant operator with comparatively limited detailed service specifications; both seem to have been more successful. For the future in the UK, possibilities include greater use of competition, a return to public ownership, regionalisation, and the use of concessions with limited risk transfer to secure stability.     

新股优先购买权性质之辩及其损害赔偿

我国现行私法体系中存有诸多类型的优先购买权制度,公司法中的新股优先购买权即为其中之一。目前学界对股权转让环节中的优先购买权有比较多的论述,而新股发行环节的优先购买权制度并未引起学界应有的关注。公司实务中,新股优先购买权时常遭到控股股东的侵害,然现行法对侵害行为缺乏明确、清晰的法律责任规范,极易引发司法审判的混乱。从完善新股优先购买权的损害赔偿机制而论,对新股先买权的性质界定应突破权能分类视角下的形成权说,须从权利内容视角出发,将其界定为股权下的自益权,就其本质而言应为债权而非物权,其权能体现为请求权。先买权人主张损害赔偿的类型可分为公司的违约责任与控股股东的侵权责任,其中控股股东的侵权责任应为主要形态,其责任基础来源于对受托义务的违反。就优先权人主张的损害赔偿范围,可分为因控制力减损引发的经济性损失以及因新股价格涨跌引起的财产损失。     

Regulating government (’s share): the fifty-percent rule of the federal constitutional court in Germany

Some numbers in the political sphere seem to be chosen rather arbitrarily. One example might be the rule set out by the Second Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court in 1995 that the overall tax load on assets must be limited to 50% of the yield on those assets. This rule was understood by many as a general principle for taxation. The article first sketches the socio-political climate under which the rule originated: a rise of neo-liberal thought met with the inability of the political institutions to reform the German welfare state with its ever-growing expenses. The Constitutional Court’s intervention is interpreted as a reaction to this stagnation in politics. An analysis from the perspective of Constitutional Law, however, reveals that the 50% rule cannot be convincingly based on the German Basic Law, and instead must be seen as a political move of the Court. But this move did not follow an economic rationality, either; for an optimal government’s share can only be determined in relation to the economic performance of a country and not by fixing it generally at a maximum of 50% of GDP. The demise of the 50% rule already began four years later. In 2006, finally, the Senate moved away from the individual rights-based approach of 1995 to a more general assessment, taking also into account an increasingly globalized tax competition. The reason for this clear-cut change in the Court’s jurisprudence can be found in a change of the socio-political and institutional parameters, thus witnessing to the effect of the political climate on court decisions. The analysis also shows that the rule was created and abandoned only on the basis of an “introverted” legal discussion, economic arguments hardly playing any role in the process. The new line of the Senate, however, might guarantee for a better integration of economic science into tax policy by exchanging fixed limits for a “discursive” model, demanding from the tax legislator better reasons for higher taxes.     

Double Discounting: The Effects of Comparative Negligence on Mock Juror Decision Making

Two experiments were conducted to ascertain the effects of comparative negligence on damage awards. Participants awarded damages for a mock medical malpractice case in which the level of the plaintiff's negligence was varied. Both experiments showed that damage awards were doubly discounted for partially negligent plaintiffs. Experiment 1 also found that the responses of college students did not differ from those of people who had been called for jury duty. Experiment 2 examined four components of the damage award and showed that the reduction due to the level of the plaintiff's negligence occurred only in damages for bodily harm. Implications for the judicial system are discussed.     

Two Steps Forward,One Step Back: One Step (Support) LTD v Morris‐Garner and Another

One Step is an important decision that deals with the circumstances in which a claimant may recover damages in contract on the so‐called Wrotham Park basis, valued as the amount that would hypothetically have been negotiated between willing parties to release the defendant from his obligation. This note argues that, although the Supreme Court was right not to award damages on this basis in this case, the test laid down by their Lordships for when such damages are available is unclear and will be difficult to apply.