Viewpoint | In traffic accidents, the victim's special physique can reduce the infringer's responsibility

Published:

2021-09-22

On May 18, 2021, a traffic accident case concluded by Jiangsu Higher People's Court was revised to the trial results of the first instance and the second instance. The opinions of the retrial High Court are inconsistent with the judgment purpose of the guiding case issued by the Supreme People's Court. Therefore, in this article, the author takes the retrial judgment as the starting point to discuss and learn the traffic accident cases involved with everyone, the legal issues related to the special constitution of the victim and the mitigation of the infringer's liability. The case of Jiangsu Shen Higher People's Court involves the following facts: the victim was injured in a traffic accident. Before the traffic accident, the victim had his own disease. The old fracture of lumbar 12 vertebral body, which was hit by the traffic accident, was injured again in the waist. After identification, the compression fracture of thoracic 12 vertebral body was caused by the traffic accident, and the left waist movement was limited, which constituted grade 10 disability in the traffic accident, and the participation in the traffic accident was 50%. In the first and second instance of the case, the court did not support the defendant's disability compensation corresponding to the 50% participation caused by the deduction of the victim's personal constitution. The case was finally revised after retrial. Let's take a look at the discussion of the court's determination in the High Court's retrial judgment: "This court believes that the causal relationship between the infringement and the consequences of the damage is the constituent element of the infringement. The causality of tort is divided into the causality of liability and the causality of the scope of liability. The former judges the causality between the infringement and the infringement of rights and interests. The latter determines the causal relationship between the tort and the consequences of the damage. There is no doubt that there is a causal relationship between the tort of the traffic accident in this case and the damage caused by Liu Yun, and there is no dispute on the establishment of tort liability. The focus of the dispute in this case is mainly on the determination of the causal relationship between the scope of liability. That is, as the infringer responsible for the traffic accident, what is the scope of responsibility that should be borne, and whether it should bear full responsibility for the damage consequences of Liu Yun's ten-level disability. The Court believes that the occurrence of tort results in the real world, the causes are complex, can not be generalized, the emergence of a damage consequence, sometimes with several acts of causality, should consider several violations of the damage to the consequences of the damage participation, that is, the problem of the proportion of the cause. When the victim itself has a special physique, it should also consider the proportion of the cause. Road traffic accidents themselves are negligent liability, and the perpetrators of the damage are unwilling to occur. As for how the victim's physical fitness is not what the person responsible for the infringement can predict, if the damage participation is completely denied, it is not in line with the fairness principle of civil law. From another perspective, the victim's original disease or damage is not caused by the perpetrator. When a traffic accident occurs, the perpetrator cannot expect the result of adding the victim's own physical reasons. Therefore, when the road traffic accident and The victim's own injury factors are superimposed to cause the damage consequences, it is necessary to find out the cause of the final damage consequences and distinguish the magnitude of the force of each cause in order to effectively draw the responsibility." Through the above-mentioned discussion of the court's view, we will discuss several issues involved: First, the issue of injury participation. 1, the concept of injury participation Injury participation refers to the proportional relationship that injury plays a role in the occurrence of death, disability and sequelae in the event that trauma, disease (including aging and physical differences) and other factors act on the human body together to damage human health. 2, the level of injury participation Injury participation can be divided into five levels: ①, there are both injury and disease, the consequences are completely caused by the injury, the disease does not work, there is an inevitable causal relationship between the injury and the consequences, which is a complete causal relationship; ②, there are both injury and disease, the consequences are mainly caused by the operation, the disease only plays an auxiliary role, then there is a direct causal relationship between the injury and the consequences, which is the main causal relationship; ③. There are both injuries and diseases, neither of which exists alone can cause the current consequences, or they are equally important in causing the current consequences, and it is difficult to prioritize, then the injury and the current consequences are boundary-type causal relationship, which is the same causal relationship; ④ There are both injuries and diseases, and the injury is the inducing or aggravating factor, that is, the injury is relatively minor and does no great harm to the human body, however, if it can induce or promote the onset of the disease, the indirect causal relationship between the injury and the current consequences is a secondary causal relationship; ⑤, there is both injury and disease, if the consequences are entirely caused by the disease, there is no causal relationship between the injury and the consequences. Second, the Jiangsu Provincial Higher People's Court mentioned in the discussion of this case: the causality of infringement is divided into the causality of the establishment of the responsibility and the analysis of the causality of the scope of the responsibility. The division of tort causation into the causation of liability establishment and the causation of liability scope is not distinguished by the High People's Court of Jiangsu Province itself, but the mainstream view of causation theory and practice in our civil law system at present. In fact, it is often said that there is considerable causation. The doctrine holds that no such act is usually bound to cause such damage, but such act is sufficient to cause such damage, there is a considerable causal relationship between the two, the doctrine holds that the causal relationship is divided into the causal relationship between the establishment of responsibility and the causal relationship between the scope of responsibility, referred to as the dichotomy of causation, the doctrine needs to divide the boundaries between the establishment of responsibility and damages. 1, the causal relationship between the establishment of responsibility. The causal relationship of responsibility is that there is a causal relationship between the imputable act and the infringement of power. The author thinks that this solves the problem of fact determination, that is, the causal relationship at the factual level, which involves the qualitative problem, that is, there is a causal relationship between the infringer's harm behavior and the victim's damage consequences. 2, the causal relationship of the scope of responsibility. The causal relationship of the scope of liability refers to the causal relationship between the infringement of power and the damage. The author thinks that this solves the problem of legal determination, that is, the causal relationship at the legal level, which involves quantitative problems. What is solved is the causal relationship between the harm behavior and one of the closest damages, that is, how much causal relationship is between the infringer's harm behavior and the victim's damage consequences. The classification of causality involved in tort law is a very complex issue. In reality, there are theories of causality, such as conditional theory, cause theory and Guran causality theory, in addition to the above-mentioned mainstream equivalent causality theory. However, no matter how reasonable the theory is, science cannot really solve all the causality problems involved in tort, therefore, some people think that the causal relationship involved in tort is not a legislative issue, but a judicial issue, and judges should be given discretion in individual cases to achieve judicial justice and further unity of judicial and social effects. Therefore, in this paper, the author only makes a brief discussion on the mainstream theory of causality, and no longer discusses it in depth. Third, the Supreme People's Court Guidance Case No. 24 involving the special constitution of the victim and the reduction of the infringer's liability. Guidance Case No. 24 issued by the Supreme People's Court in 2014 held that: Article 26 of the "the People's Republic of China Tort Liability Law" stipulates: "If the infringer is also at fault for the occurrence of the damage, the infringer's liability can be reduced." In this case, although the plaintiff Rong X Ying's personal physical condition has a certain impact on the occurrence of damage consequences, but this is not the tort liability law and other legal provisions of the fault, Rong X Ying should not be due to personal physical condition on the disability caused by traffic accidents There is a certain impact and self-responsibility. Although Rong X Ying is old, her old osteoporosis is only an objective factor of the consequences of the accident, and there is no legal causal relationship. Therefore, the victim Rong X Ying is not at fault for the occurrence or expansion of the damage, and there is no statutory situation to reduce or exempt the perpetrator from liability. For personal physical problems, the law of our country does not give clear opinions, so after the introduction of the guiding cases in that year, it played a certain role in the judicial practice of traffic accident cases that appeared in a certain period of time. However, with the development of time and the progress of theory, it is not supported by pure and unfair to a certain extent. Therefore, the author believes that the views of the Higher People's Court of Jiangsu Province precisely represent the further development of the theory of tort causation in practice. Fourth, the provisions of local courts on the special physique of victims. 1. Trial Rules of the Intermediate People's Court of Hefei City on Cases of Compensation for Damages in Road Traffic Accidents (Trial)(2019) Article 27: Where there is a causal relationship between the victim's own health condition and the consequences of the damage, and the self-health condition originates from the natural aging or special constitution of the human body, the infringer's liability for compensation shall not be reduced: but the disease suffered by the victim before the traffic accident significantly aggravates the consequences of the damage, for the part that exceeds the limit of liability for compulsory traffic insurance, the victim's own disease participation in the consequences of the damage should be considered, and the infringer's liability should be reduced accordingly. 2. The answer to the difficult questions on the application of civil trial law of Zhejiang Higher People's court in the 17th issue of 2013 is: if the victim with special physique (including physical and mental special physique, as well as congenital heredity or acquired aging and sick physique) suffers infringement, the compensation obligor shall, in principle, be liable for all the damages suffered by the victim. If the indemnity obligor defends that the damage suffered by the victim is induced by his own special constitution, it is generally not supported, but the consequences of the damage are beyond the scope that can be expected under normal circumstances and the infringer does not have intentional or gross negligence, the liability of the obligor may be appropriately mitigated by taking into account the specific circumstances such as the degree of fault of the infringer, the means of infringement, the manner of conduct, the gap between the usual possible consequences of the infringement and the actual consequences of the damage, and the financial capacity of the infringer to bear the liability. To sum up, whether the individual special physique can be a factor to reduce the responsibility of the infringer, although the theory of causality has certain limitations in practice, the author believes that in the trial practice, the judge can learn from the theory, comprehensively consider the degree of the infringer's fault, the means and methods of the harmful act, the expected consequences, the principle of fairness and other comprehensive identification, should not be supported.

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