징벌적 손해배상제도의 도입 필요성과 가능성에 대한 일고찰 = A Study on Necessity and Possibility on the Introduction of Punitive Damages

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the introduction of the punitive damages, which is unique in the Anglo-American Law, and the concerned problems in the view of utilizing personal initiatives in controlling or preventing Intentional Torts, which is the obligation of modern Torts law, and further to implement law.
The common views and precedents so far have regarded the punitive damages as one hard to accept under the Korea's legal systems based on the distinction theory between the civil and criminal liabilities. In other words, they believed that the certain controlling functions of the principle of law regarding torts liability for illegal acts, if any, were merely reflective or secondary effects and that the punitive damages essentially aimed to suppress the offenders and the similar illegal acts.
Those old arguments, however, do have problems with the principle of law and limitations in the legal functions, restricting the judicial relief for liability for illegal acts within supplementary damages and committing the oppression of unlawfulness and antisociality only into the criminal or administrative restraints. Furthermore, the arguments must be supported by the premise that the controlling systems should work well enough by public agencies such as investigating or administrative ones in order to have some persuasive power.
But it's practically impossible for a public agency to check every single action that threatens people's lives or violates their rights seriously and to put proper restraints on them in today's highly complex modern society. Even if it's possible, reinforcing the ‘public supervision system’ means enormous investments of money.
In this vein, the ‘punitive damages,’ which is unique in the Anglo-American law, is intended to force compensations for damages on the offender to control the same illegal acts by him or a third party in the future by adding punishment to the supplementary compensations for the damages caused by the ill-intended illegal acts. It can be recognized as a legal system having the potential to contribute to the modern task that is ‘implementing law’ by using personal initiatives. Thus it's urgent to introduce the punitive damages as a means of improving the problems with the current law.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 서론
• Ⅱ. 징벌적 손해배상제도의 도입필요성
• Ⅲ. 징벌적 손해배상제도의 도입가능성
• Ⅳ. 결론
• 〈Abstract〉