제조물책임에 있어서 징벌적 손해배상의 과제와 전망 - 미국 Toole 판결의 분석과 시사점을 중심으로 -

Korea has recently amended the Product Liability Act introducing the 'Punitive Damages' system, which provides up to three times the actual damages against the manufacturers who caused consumers serious body injuries or deaths by knowingly failing to take adequate steps upon defective products. Although several legislation has been made involving punitive damages before, the revised Product Liability Act has been highlighted from the public in the whole nationwide scale in partly because huge numbers of manufacturing companies and numerous consumers in stake upon the change unlike the other legislations involving punitive damages before and in partly because almost all the Korean people has desired an severe responsive regulatory steps against the unethical and malicious business behaviors, such as the infamous 'humidifier germicide case' which caused more 1195 people's deaths, but partly because the amendment is not satisfactory enough to counter attack the malice leaving much of debates. this article is dedicated to review, inter alia, the new Product Liability Act in light of the Toole decision , not only because it is the first modern product liability case involving punitive damages in the United Sates but also because it depicted extremely blameworthy conduct by the manufacturer. Upon the resulting lessons from the review, this article spots several issues to help sound settlement and administrating of the punitive damage system in Korea: the amount of the punitive damages should be higher than the up to 3 times of the actual damages; the factual elements of assessing the amount of punitive damages should be more openly provided enabling some useful elements to be included, which found in Toole decision such elements as whether the defective product offers no substantial benefits which would outweigh the risk of marketing a product in a defective state; and whether the defendant fraudulently misleads government regulators or the consuming public by marketing or promoting the product; and also whether the defendant's conduct in marketing the defective product fell below accepted industry standards. Furthermore, for the Product Liability Act to play more effectively for the general public it is now time to consider introducing more American systems such as the class action, and the jury system which Korea has already successful experience in the criminal procedure.