Article 1164
This Part regulates civil relations arising from infringement of civil rights and interests.
1. The main purpose of this article
This article is about the scope of adjustment of the tort liability section of the Civil Code.
II. Evolution of the Provisions
The original General Principles of the Civil Law did not directly stipulate the scope of adjustment of the tort liability system, but paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 106 of the same law provided that citizens and legal persons should bear civil liability for acts that infringe upon the property of the state or the collective, or the property or person of others due to their faults. Based on these two provisions, it can be deduced that the scope of adjustment of the tort liability system is the tortious legal relationship arising from the infringement of the personal and property rights and interests of civil subjects. Paragraph 1 of Article 2 of the original Tort Liability Law stipulates that "infringement of civil rights and interests shall be subject to tort liability in accordance with this Law", which clarifies the scope of adjustment of the Tort Liability Law from the perspective of the scope of the object of tort legal relations, but does not adopt the definition of regulation from the perspective of legal relations. Paragraph 2 provides an incomplete enumeration of the civil rights and interests protected by the original Tort Liability Law in accordance with the method of "enumeration and generalization", involving a wide range of civil rights and interests, but the civil rights and interests listed in the article are all personal and property rights and interests with a universal nature, revealing that the civil rights and interests protected by the tort legal system are, in principle, an absolute right of a universal nature. Unlike Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the original Tort Liability Law, which provides for the protection of rights and interests, this article of the Civil Code technically inherits the tradition of defining the scope of adjustment in mainland civil legislation from the perspective of legal relationship, and is consistent with the provisions of the adjustment scope in various parts of the Civil Code in terms of legislative style.
3. Interpretation of Provisions
This article is a provision on the scope of adjustment of "tort liability" in Part VII of the Civil Code.
In the Civil Code, Title VII "Tort Liability" is a norm that specifically regulates the legal relationship of tort liability. After the infringement occurs, a legal relationship of tort liability occurs between the infringer and the infringed party, and the infringed party is the claimant and the subject of the right to the legal relationship of tort liability, and the infringer is the subject of liability and bears the responsibility of satisfying the infringed party's claim for tort liability. Title VII, "Tort Liability", is a special law that regulates this legal relationship.
Part VII of the Civil Code, "Tort Liability", stipulates the scope of adjustment, that is, the scope of protection of this part. The scope of protection of this part is all civil rights and interests. In this sense, this provision replaces the content of Article 2 of the Tort Liability Law, which is more cumbersome and omitted. This article adopts a general legislative approach, and includes all civil rights and interests within the scope of protection of "tort liability" in Part VII of the Civil Code.
The scope of protection of Part VII of the Civil Code "Tort Liability" is: (1) all civil rights. The civil rights stipulated in Chapter 5 of the "General Provisions" of Part I of the Civil Code, i.e., personality rights, identity rights, property rights, creditor's rights, intellectual property rights, inheritance rights, equity rights and other investment rights, are all protected by the "tort liability" in Part VII of the Civil Code. (2) The civil interests protected by law are legal interests, including other personality interests protected by general personality rights, the personality interests of the fetus, the personality interests of the deceased, other identity interests and other property interests. These are protected by Title VII of the Civil Code, "Tort Liability".
If these civil rights and interests are infringed upon, a legal relationship of tort liability arises, and the infringed party may exercise the right to make a claim, and the infringer shall bear the tort liability and remedy the damages.
4. Cases
Puxin Company v. Bank of China International Property Damage Compensation Dispute
Facts: The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court issued a ruling in the case of Puxin Company v. Weimeite Company, freezing the securities and funds of Weimeite Company that had been in BOC International. BOCI refused to assist in the property preservation on the grounds that it was necessary to go to the headquarters to go through the relevant inquiry and approval procedures. Subsequently, BOCI transferred the property without the consent of Weimeite. Puxin Company then filed a lawsuit on the grounds of infringement of creditor's rights by BOCI. The focus of the dispute in this case was whether BOCI's act of transferring securities and obstructing the court's property preservation had infringed upon the claims enjoyed by the property preservation applicant, namely Puxin Company, against the respondent, and whether Puxin Company could claim the tort liability for damages in accordance with the Tort Liability Law for the damaged creditor's rights. The court of first instance held that, knowing that Puxin had already implemented property preservation on Weimeite through the court, BOCI illegally transferred the property of Weimeite by changing the designated transaction without the consent of Weimeite, which frustrated most of the preservation measures taken by the court against Puxin's creditor's rights, and ultimately led to the failure of Puxin's litigation claims to be fully repaid. BOCI's act of transferring property was obviously subjective and malicious, and the causal relationship between the act and the loss caused by Puxin's unpaid creditor's rights was clear, so the fact that BOCI infringed on Puxin was established. The court of second instance held that, out of consideration of its own interests, BOCI maliciously obstructed Puxin's application for prior preservation, and used illegal means to compete for the order of property preservation. The malicious intent of the infringement of the legitimate creditor's rights of Puxin Company is obvious, and Puxin Company has the right to request protection in accordance with the Tort Liability Law for the damage of its creditor's rights.
5. Analysis
The "third party" in the third party's infringement of creditor's rights refers to a person who is outside the creditor-debtor relationship, and that person is neither a debtor nor a creditor. Most scholars in mainland China believe that creditor's rights can become the object of protection under tort law, but in view of the fact that creditor's rights are not typical of public nature, the constitutive elements of a third party's infringement of a creditor's right must be strictly defined, that is, it is limited to the situation where the third party is aware of the existence of the creditor's right and intentionally infringes it. [2] This case is a typical case of a third party infringing on creditor's rights. Although the rights protected by Part VII of the Civil Code "Tort Liability" are mainly absolute rights, other interests cannot be protected in the same way as rights, but should consider whether such interests are protected by some special protective regulations, consider the subjective state of the infringer, consider whether the two parties have a close relationship, and avoid excessive restrictions on freedom of action. However, the scope of "civil rights and interests" provided for in Article 1164 of the Civil Code should be based on the scope of "Civil Rights" in Chapter 5 of Part I of the Civil Code, "General Provisions", which stipulates creditor's rights.