Study on the Legal Application of Moral Damages for Breach of Contract in China

In China’s previous system of legal application, there was no concept of moral damages for breach of contract. A claim for breach of contract and a claim for tort are naturally opposed. However, in Article 996 of the Civil Code, it is stipulated that “If the injured party chooses to request that he or she be held liable for breach of contract due to the breach of contract of one of the parties, which damages the personality rights of the other party and causes serious moral damage, it shall not affect the injured party’s request for compensation for moral damage.” This content. It makes it possible for a party who has suffered moral damage to claim compensation for his or her moral damage when claiming liability for breach of contract. But the legal norm only establishes: “without prejudice to the request for moral damages”. As for how to request compensation for moral damage, in the judicial practice process how to solve the problem of competing claims between the liability for breach of contract and tort liability have not been clearly stipulated. Combined with the results of the current judicial decisions, the logic of the application of Article 996 of the Civil Code has a variety of modes, and at the same time, how to determine the tort liability based on the contractual relationship, there are also difficulties in the application of the law. Starting from Article 996 of the Civil Code, this paper analyses the dilemmas and solutions of the legal application of moral damages for breach of contract in China, and improves the legal application of the system of moral damages for breach of contract, through the discussion of extra-territorial doctrinal viewpoints and the way of legal application.