我国产品责任法中发展风险抗辩制度的反思与重构

On the Development Risk Defense in China's Product Liability Law: Review and Reconstruction

严格产品责任中,发展风险抗辩制度的设置符合现代社会兼顾公平与效率之诉求,有助于实现生产者与消费者之利益平衡。然而,将发展风险作为责任免除事由之现行规范模式,极易引发体系冲突,亦导致司法适用的困难,严重阻碍其制度运行与功能发挥。我国产品质量法对产品缺陷的界定,为发展风险规范模式之重构提供了制度路径。通过将科技水平证据内化为消费者合理期待标准之核心要素,从而把发展风险转化为针对缺陷要件之抗辩,不仅有助于在我国产品责任框架下厘清该制度的作用机制,亦可为当前产品缺陷认定的司法困境提供消解方案。重构后的发展风险抗辩制度的适用规则体系为四层次结构,包括科技水平的界定、判断时点的选择、适用范围的限定与风险实现的救济。

The development risk defense system complies with the demands of modern society for both fairness and efficiency,which helps to achieve a balance between the interests of producers and consumers in strict product liability. That the development risk acts after liability constituted as an exemption will easily lead to system conflicts and also result in difficulties in judicial practice,which severely hampers the function of the development risk defense system. The definition of product defect in China＇s product quality law provides an institutional path for norm remodeling of the development risk defense. By converting the state of art evidence into the consumer＇s reasonable expectation standard,the development risk defense can be translated into the defense against the existence of product defect,which will not only help to clarify the action mechanism of the system in the framework of product liability,but also to provide solutions for the current judicial predicament of determining product defect. And on this basis,the specific rules of application should be composed of four aspects,including the definition of the state of art,the timing of judgment,the scope of application and the relief of risk.