가습기 살균제 사건의 민사적 쟁점: 제조물책임과 인과관계 입증

The victims who have suffered or are suffering by using disinfectant humidifiers are now bringing some lawsuit against the companies made the disinfectant humidifiers and sold them. The case of Disinfectant Humidifiers should apply the Product Liability Act as the special rule of general torts because the damages in the case were caused by defect in the products were made up of high technology-intensive and mass production. The courts have sought relief against damage in series of cases related product liability through presumption of manufacturer's negligence and the cause-and-effect relationship between the defect and damage, before enforcing the Product Liability Act. But, in some cases, the courts said the Product Liability Act had the provision of the product-defect, and the provision classified as ‘defect in manufacturing’, ‘defect in design’, ‘defect in indication’. And the courts added that ‘defect in design’ and ‘defect in indication’ in the Product Liability Act were interpreted as negligence-liability. The theory of the courts meant victims eventually should prove that a manufacturer was ware, or should have been aware, of the fact of the product-defect. And that means no difference with general tort-liability. The cases are subject to the Product Liability Act should prove the fact that the damage occurred owing to the product-defect, so-called cause-effect relationship, along with general tort-liability. In the product liability, particularly, it is a matter of whether or not epidemiological causal relationship is applied. The Supreme Court, in Korea, said the epidemiological relevance did not mean acknowledgement of individual causal relation. While the Supreme Court distinguished between specific and non-specific diseases, the Court also said the epidemiological correlation as a individual cause-effect relationship could be accepted only on occasions of specific diseases. The criteria for a specific disease pointed out in the Supreme Court Ruling of the Agent Orange Lawsuit are as follows: 'stemming from one etiology' and 'a clear correspondence between pathological cause and effect'. The theory of the Court, however, has been criticized for some reasons. First, the dichotomy of specific and non-specific diseases is devoid of a scientific foundation. Second, if a specific disease were to be defined as a disease having necessary and sufficient conditions stemming from a single cause, such a specific disease cannot exist. Many courts in courses of judgement have tried to actually relieve damage by alleviating, for victims, the burden of proof in the environmental lawsuits and product-liability lawsuits. The court should keep such the effort to alleviate the burden of proof in the case of Disinfectant Humidifiers. A court should also respect the result of epidemiological study as a evidential data in court, as the result of judicial appraisal does except having obvious errors, even if it judges with free evaluation of evidence.