Administrative compensation of medical injuries: a hardy perennial blooms again

Periods in which the costs of personal injury litigation and liability insurance have risen dramatically have often provoked calls for reform of the tort system, and medical malpractice is no exception. One proposal for fundamental reform made during several of these volatile periods has been to relocate personal injury disputes from the tort system to an alternative, administrative forum. In the medical injury realm, a leading incarnation of such proposals in recent years has been the idea of establishing specialized administrative "health courts." Despite considerable stakeholder and policy-maker interest, administrative compensation proposals have tended to struggle for broad political acceptance. In this article, we consider the historical experience of administrative medical injury compensation proposals, particularly in light of comparative examples in the context of workplace injuries, automobile injuries, and vaccine injuries. We conclude by examining conditions that may facilitate or impede progress toward establishing demonstration projects of health courts.     

论潜伏性人身损害的赔偿

随着科学技术的发展和疾病知识的普及,潜伏性人身损害的赔偿问题日益引起重视。既有立法基本不对损害进行界定,潜伏性人身损害更不会在立法文本中得到体现,但是既有损害概念的学理解释可以为潜伏性人身损害的赔偿提供认识基础。对潜伏性人身损害予以赔偿有其必要性,但是也会对传统侵权法带来挑战。虽然如此,既有司法实践还是积极回应受害人的赔偿诉求,从概念扩张和利益平衡等角度进行了大胆探索。为了有效解决潜伏性人身损害的赔偿问题,既需要从损害概念的更新方面做出努力,又需要从诉讼中的证明责任、证明能力等角度进行变革。     

中国侵权责任法解说

对2010年7月1日生效的《中华人民共和国侵权责任法》进行全面解说十分必要。对该部法律的法律结构和立法模式、一般条款和保护客体、归责事由、多数人的侵权行为、人身损害的赔偿、财产损失的计算、侵害人身权益造成财产损失的赔偿、精神损害赔偿、停止侵害请求权、使用人责任、网络侵权责任、安全保障义务、惩罚性赔偿、建筑物责任等十四个方面进行解读,串引了我国侵权责任法的几乎全部制度。通过对该法制定前的学说特别是最高人民法院一系列司法解释发展脉络的总结分析,以及对该法与日本等国家和地区相同、相关制度的对应性比较考察,既有对各条款基本文义的解释,又有条款设计的妥当性论证,向读者传达了关于中国侵权责任法主要制度的立法理由说明。     

Safety,Regulation and Tort: Fault in Context

The relationship between tort and regulation is dense and complicated. This paper examines diverse approaches to one small element of this relationship: the relationship between regulatory norms and the standard of care in personal injury cases. The lack of clear rules governing that interaction is not surprising: we would never expect the courts to give up the authority (or abdicate the responsibility) to generate private law norms; on the other hand, nor would we expect them to ignore the potential authority and legitimacy of external norms. The strength of external standards is best identified by close scrutiny of the regulation itself. The varying authority of external norms in a private law forum requires engagement with the process by which the external norms were reached. Who and what determined the ‘ought’ of regulation will provide greater insight into the ways in which it should inform the ‘ought’ of tort.     

我国人身损害赔偿制度的困境与超越

当代侵权行为法面临的危机在我国人身损害赔偿制度的困境中得到充分的体现,突出表现在制度功能、当事人心理和司法裁判方面,根源在于固守传统道德机理的人身损害赔偿制度无法应对现代复杂的侵权关系。解决的途径在于重新审视我国人身损害赔偿制度的功能体系、检讨精神损害和物质损害赔偿的操作方略,寻求解决危机的有效路径。     

医疗侵权损害赔偿制度立法问题剖析——兼论医疗机构化解责任风险的途径

当前，我国司法实践中医疗侵权纠纷案件适用法律很混乱。主要原因是我国医疗侵权损害赔偿制度由多层次立法文件交叉规定，且各条款不一致。笔者认为，由国务院颁布的《医疗事故处理条例》中的医疗事故损害赔偿条款属于违宪违法的条款，应当尽快废止。而医疗侵权损害赔偿应统一适用民事基本法中的一般人身损害赔偿条款。此外，建立医疗责任保险制度是在市场经济体制中医疗机构化解责任风险的较优选择。     

死亡赔偿制度的嬗变及反思——以死亡赔偿金及精神抚慰金为视角

死亡赔偿制度是侵权法的重要制度,如何处理好死亡赔偿金和精神抚慰金的赔偿问题也一直是人们争论不休的论题。犯罪行为致人死亡,是否应予赔偿以及如何赔偿是一个兼具理论和现实意义的问题。现行立法和司法将其区别于一般侵权赔偿。死亡赔偿金和精神抚慰金被排斥在死亡赔偿范围之外是基于“立法无明文规定、刑事责任可以替代民事责任、死亡赔偿“执行难”等理由。我们应当通过民事诉讼支持精神抚慰金,以此弥补刑事诉讼中的非刑罚处理方法和附带民事诉讼物质损失赔偿对被害人权利救济的不足;同时,立法上将精神损害赔偿引入附带民事诉讼,方能消弭相关法律冲突。死亡赔偿“执行难”实质是一个在司法环节暴露出来的社会问题,彻底解决这一问题有待于国家救助制度的最终建立。     

俄罗斯侵权损害赔偿制度的特色及启示——以《俄罗斯联邦民法典》为分析蓝本

《俄罗斯联邦民法典》关于侵权损害赔偿的制度设计具有四大特色:对遭受生命、健康权损害的受害人给予特殊有利的法律保护;对遭受健康损害的受害人体现了充分赔偿的原则;在死亡赔偿制度设计中对受供养人利益给予充分保护;产品缺陷责任因彻底抛弃发展中的风险抗辩而凸显立法的公平、人道与合理性。这些对我国侵权责任法所具有的启发意义在于:我国侵权损害赔偿的制度设计应旗帜鲜明地体现生命、健康权保护具有最高法律价值的理念;对遭受健康权损害的受害人应充分赔偿;在受害人死亡时,应对受供养人的利益保护问题予以高度关注;在产品责任领域应彻底抛弃发展中的风险抗辩。     

海上人身伤亡案件的法律适用

海上人身伤亡案件受害人有权选择请求加害方承担违约或侵权责任。违约或侵权行为是否构成应根据民法通则、海商法、合同法、劳动法等法律法规确定。违约责任以严格责任为一般原则,海商法规定承运人对旅客承担过错责任不合理。一般侵权行为归责原则为过错责任,而特殊侵权行为为无过错责任。现行的关于海上人身伤亡赔偿的法律、行政规章和司法解释对赔偿范围、损失计算、责任限制的规定标准不一,相互不协调,应予修正。     

Court Awards of Damages for Loss of Future Earnings: An Empirical Study and an Alternative Method of Calculation

This article examines the effect upon damages for personal injury of methods used in the United States of America to calculate loss of future earnings. The work of lawyers is examined from the perspective of labour economists. The damages calculated by using these alternative methods are compared with those actually awarded in over a hundred cases determined by courts in England and Wales. This interdisciplinary and comparative study reveals that the tort system fails to satisfy one of its main objectives in that it does not provide recipients of damages with 'full' compensation.     

Governing ghostbots

This article discusses the legal implications of a novel phenomenon, namely, digital reincarnations of deceased persons, sometimes known as post-mortem avatars, deepfakes, replicas, holographs, or chatbots. To elide these multiple names, we use the term 'ghostbots'. The piece is an early attempt to discuss the potential social and individual harms, roughly grouped around notions of privacy (including post-mortem privacy), property, personal data and reputation, arising from ghostbots, how they are regulated and whether they need to be adequately regulated further. For reasons of space and focus, the article does not deal with copyright implications, fraud, consumer protection, tort, product liability, and pornography laws, including the non-consensual use of intimate images (‘revenge porn’). This paper focuses on law, although we fully acknowledge and refer to the role of philosophy and ethics in this domain.We canvas two interesting legal developments with implications for ghostbots, namely, the proposed EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act and the 2021 New York law amending publicity rights to protect the rights of celebrities whose personality is used in post-mortem ‘replicas’. The latter especially evidences a remarkable shift from the norm we have chronicled in previous articles of no respect for post-mortem privacy to a growing recognition that personality rights do need protection post-mortem in a world where pop stars and actors are routinely re-created using AI. While the legislative motivation here may still be primarily to protect economic interests, we argue it also shows a concern for dignitary and privacy interests.Given the apparent concern for the appropriation of personality post-mortem, possibly in defiance or ignorance of what the deceased would have wished, we propose an early solution to regulate the rise of ghostbots, namely an enforceable ‘do not bot me’ clause in analogue or digital wills.     

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.”     

工伤补偿制度:起源、问题与解决

社会化的工伤保险制度系因应工业社会中频发的工伤而产生,在一些国家是工伤补偿以禁止劳动者对雇主请求民事侵权赔偿为前提的,除第三人侵权情形外,我国亦是如此.但工伤补偿和民事侵权赔偿的差异,导致了两个方面的问题:劳动者无法获得充分赔偿和雇主对安全问题的懈怠,这要求工伤补偿与民事侵权赔偿之间的制度衔接.工伤补偿制度仅应适用于无过错责任,在雇主存在过错的情况下,应赋予劳动者独立的民事侵权责任求偿权,确立过错责任和无过错责任之间补充的关系.     

德国环境损害赔偿法律问题初探

德国环境损害赔偿立法的历史悠久,其相应的法律法规较完备。针对其环境侵权损害赔偿的立法,德国理论界根据环境侵权损害赔偿责任产生的基础将之分为三类:即以容忍为前提的牺牲性责任、危险性责任和一般侵权责任。德国环境损害赔偿立法以改善受害人的法律地位、侧重人身损害赔偿以及重视对生态破坏的赔偿为主要价值取向。目前,德国正准备制定一部统一的环境损害赔偿法,德国的这一做法对于和德国环境损害赔偿立法较相似的我国来说,具有非常重要的借鉴意义。     

论过度医疗侵权责任及其法律救济

过度医疗侵权责任是过度医疗侵权行为中患者合法权益救济与过度医疗侵权行为法律规制的核心问题。《侵权责任法》第63条法律适用中最大障碍性因素,是法律意义上的过度医疗如何界定与过度医疗侵权责任构成明晰问题。对过度医疗内涵法律界定与过度医疗侵权责任构成分析,应综合侵权行为一般本质、医疗侵权行为特殊本质以及过度医疗行为性质及其固有属性来进行。过度医疗侵权应适用过错推定责任进行归责,并应适用全面赔偿原则。过度医疗中由于医师履行告知义务的违法性与患者知情同意侵权行为产生竞合,在过度医疗侵权法律救济中,两种诉由皆可适用。应对《侵权责任法》第63条进行立法扩充解释,对过度医疗及认定标准进一步作出司法解释。     

Tort Law for Cynics

Tort scholars have in recent years defended a ‘traditional’ or ‘idealist’ view of tort law. In the context of negligence this implies that the holder of a duty of care must make an effort not to violate that duty. Idealists contrast this with a ‘cynical’ view that having a duty of care implies a legal requirement to pay damages for breach of that duty. This article defends the cynical view, arguing that it easily explains doctrines supposedly only explicable from an idealist perspective, and that many aspects of tort law are hard to reconcile with idealism. Empirical constraints often make idealism, even if it were desirable, unattainable, and cynicism is therefore the more honest view. The article argues that idealism is often undesirable, having costs, both pecuniary and non‐pecuniary, which are often ignored, and that therefore it is sometimes better if certain torts take place (and are compensated) than if they do not happen.     

人身侵权债权在破产清偿顺位中优先受偿之思辩

在调整人身侵权债权的各种制度中,为人身侵权债权在破产清偿顺位中找寻优先清偿点是次优制度选择,因为无论人身侵权债权定位在哪一个清偿层面都是后序债权人为破产企业的非法行为买单。为此,在其他法律制度足以保护人身侵权债权人权益的前提下,在破产清偿顺位中为人身侵权债权人设置优先受偿权实属不必要。但是其他法律制度不足以保护人身侵权债权人的权益时,我们可以考虑在破产清偿顺位中采用将人身侵权债权与劳动者债权同序的方式来保护人身侵权债权人的合法权益。     

违反安全保障义务侵权行为的赔偿责任探析

公共场所、宾馆、学校等从事经营活动或其他社会活动的人,违反安全保障义务而给消费者或其他社会大众造成人身、财产损失的行为,是一种不作为侵权行为,经营者必须对此后果承担赔偿责任。经营者承担赔偿责任必须符合一般侵权行为民事责任的构成要件。承担责任的形式可能是直接责任,也可能是补充责任。     

The Compensation Culture: Cliché or Cause for Concern?

The ‘compensation culture’ has featured frequently in the popular press over the last decade. There have, however, been comparatively few academic studies and such studies as there have been have largely focused on personal injury claims. A compensation culture, if it exists, could extend much wider than that. This article compares the exponential increase in the use of the term ‘compensation culture’ in the national printed media since 1995 with available statistics relating to the Queen's Bench, County Courts, and employment tribunals. Far from spiralling upwards, these statistics show a broad decline across a range of claims with the exception of claims before the employment tribunals, where the government has created a slew of new heads of claim. In order to counter the misconceptions founded by the popular media, and to allow for greater scrutiny, more attention should be paid to the collection and dissemination of judicial and claims statistics.     

‘In this Day and Age’: Social Facts,Common Sense and Cognition in Tort Law Judging in the United Kingdom

Tort law judging in the United Kingdom includes judicial ‘truth claims’ or ‘social facts’ about the world, society, and institutional and human behaviour. Although corrective justice and rights scholars assert tort law is autonomous and internally referential, social facts can be influential in tort decisions. While there is some evidence of judicial use of empirical research, many social facts are based on judicial notice, judicial common sense, and intuition. Social facts, often based on judicial common sense, play a role in tort judging. However, they can also be fertile ground for the introduction of cognitive bias and judicial error. The role of social facts in tort judging is not confined to ‘policy’ reasoning but includes social framework, context, and background. Emerging research on judicial cognition can help explain the nature and impact of common‐sense social facts. There is a need to consider potential responses to judicial use of social facts and judicial cognition.