论英美法中弃权和禁止反言原则在保险法上的适用

【作者】 王霞；

【导师】 王晓川；

【作者基本信息】 对外经济贸易大学 ， 国际法， 2000， 硕士

【摘要】 契约法是民法的最为古老也是最为重要的组成部分。到了二十世纪以后，契约法在许多方面都发生了重大的变化。大量新的规范伴随着新的契约理论不断出现。于是有人惊叹，契约法正伴随着对价理论的衰落而衰落甚至死亡，它将要被侵权法的洪流所吞噬。弃权和禁止反言原则正是在这种大环境中亮相登场，成为英美法中维持契约公正性的主要工具。它的出现，标志着契约法和侵权法一度严格的界限正变得相对模糊。弃权和禁止反言原则就象一枚硬币的两个方面，二者即有重合又有区别。在保险法中，由于保险人和被保险人在资金、诉讼经验，谈判地位等方面存在巨大的差别，因此，保险契约是典型的诚信契约。弃权和禁止反言在这个领域中显得尤为重要。由于法院在适用这两个原则时，享有很大的自由裁量权，因此，这些原则即是强有力的，又是很危险的。对其合理适用划定一个适当的界限无疑是一种挑战。本文正是基于这一出发点，试图对这种被广泛适用，却很少有人做出系统研究的原则做一探索。本文共分五个部分，主体思路是从原则的产生，有关二原则的一般性规定过渡到二原则在保险法上的具体适用。第一部分，主要介绍弃权和禁止反言的产生。弃权和禁止反言是作为英美契约法中对价理论的对立面产生并发展的。对价理论一度是近代英美契约理论的轴心，是决定契约效力的决定性原理。它具有两个特点，其一是理论框架内的规则具有准确、明确、技术性的特点，是一种纯粹意义的契约法则，其二，对非典型事件不予考虑，表现出教条、机械、刻板的特点。严格的对价理论和绝对的契约责任观念，使19世纪的美国法官们在契约案件中只能充当超然的契约公断人的角色。他们既不能为当事人订立契约，也不为他们审查契约，其主要职责只是在当事人不履约时强制执行其履行责任，对古典时代的法院来说，契约公正与否是不在他们考虑范围之内的。随着契约种类的迅速增加，该原则已经不能适应经济和社会的发展，其对契约范围和责任的限制已到了令人难以容忍的地步。英美两国逐渐出现了大量采用弃权和禁止反言原则确认契约责任的案例，信任、公平等因素重新受到重视，并籍此将合同法从片面注重合同的形式性和外部性的迷津中解救出来。 <WP=3>第二部分，弃权和禁止反言概述。主要阐述了这两个原则的含义及联系与区别。从理论上讲，这两个原则很好理解，只是在实践中才会惊讶于其适用的灵活性、广泛性和界限的难以把握。弃权和禁止反言在内容和性质上的不同主要表现在，弃权仅适用于放弃依据合同所享有的权利，因而必须有合同关系存在。禁止反言则是侵权法上的原则，适用于不存在合同关系的情形下。一方主张另一方弃权时，他必须证明另一方知道有关情事且通过明确的言语或行为放弃了他基于对方的违约行为所享有的权利。而以禁止反言为抗辩理由时，只要证明有依赖关系和受损害的事实即可。第三部分主要从五个主要方面分析了弃权原则在保险法上的适用。1、弃权的构成要件，即要求保险人知道权利的存在并有明确的意思表示。2、限制弃权的保单条款，主要分析了不抛弃条款的效力并强调保险人虽然可以利用该条款，以保留抗辩权，但不得滥行使用，以致过分有利于己，而不利于被保险人。此外，不抛弃调条款本身也是可以抛弃的。3、弃权的范围，是就弃权做出限制。其中最重要的例外规定是建立在公共政策的基础上，保险人不得放弃普通法或成文法所规定的涉及公共利益的任何权利。4、放弃，5、投保单的效力，保险人的提问是否构成被保险人必须披露的全部重要事实，被保险人是否有义务告知投保单以外的其他事实，对此，法院并无定论，应根据个案情况具体分析。第四部分从六个方面分析了禁止反言原则在保险法上的适用。1、禁止反言的构成要件，即要求被保险人有事实上的依赖和遭受损害。2、禁止反言的适用范围。3、口头投保与禁止反言，投保人以口头形式投保，有时难免不够完整，在此情形下，禁止反言原则是否适用？一般来讲，要将责任归责到保险人是很困难的。4、禁止反言与重大不实陈述，当保险代理人在保险申请书中加入了不实陈述，被保险人是否可以主张禁止反言。这个问题的关键是申请人是否有义务阅读申请书，从而可以得知是否有不真实的内容。5、口头证言规则，6、司法禁止反言原则，它与本文其他地方提到的禁止反言原则并不相同，它是禁止保险公司在同一诉讼中或不同的诉讼中，为了自己的利益，提出自相矛盾的诉讼主张。由于保险公司在资金实力、诉讼经验等方面都优于被保险人，以及为了维护司法的统一性，法院往往会禁止保险人自食其言。第五部分，结束语主要阐述了在保险业的开放已是大势所趋的今天，适当的引入弃权和禁止反言原则将有利于加强对被保险人的保护及进一步完善我国的保险法。更多还原

【Abstract】 This paper attempts to set out a series of principles, that is waive and promissory estoppel and to consider those principles as they apply to insurance law. The paper falls into two sections: an examination of the doctrine of waiver and promissory estoppel as means to establish underling rules and an application of those principles to insurance law. In part 1, we introduce the emergence and development of the principles of waiver and estoppel. In the 20th century, great changes have taken place on contract law. Someone even said that the contract law as one of the most important branches of the law, is dying, accompany with the declining of the theory of consideration. Courts in the old time use the consideration theory as the criterion to conclude whether the contract is valid or not and therefore didn’t care about the specific situations and fairness, which went against the aims of the general law. Waiver and estoppel given birth as the counterparts of consideration theory were welcomed and accepted by the American and English courts and applied to a large range of areas. In part 2, we definite the two principles. Further we draw distinctions and relationships between the two principles. Waiver in its true sense only applies to the loss of contractual rights, thus waiver can’t create additional obligations of any kind. Therefore there will be no waiver where there is no unequivocal representation as to whether or not particular contractual rights will be relied on. However estoppel belongs to the tort law, it operates to prevent or reduce detriment being suffered by those who rely on assumptions induced by others. In certain incarnations, namely where they operate on promises, estoppels often mitigate the harshness of the law of contract’s emphasis on consideration. It should be noted, however, that estoppels cover a range of situations, <WP=5>which fall outside the scope of the promissory liability of the law of contract. Part 3 analyses the application of waiver on insurance law. The work falls into five parts: the necessary pre-conditions to rely on waiver, the scope of waiver and effect of the non-waiver clause and the proposed form. We further compared the waiver with release and conclude that they are totally different. In Part 4, we move from the application of waiver to estoppel on insurance law. Same to waiver, we first analyze the necessary pre-conditions of the estoppel and its scope. Then we come to the oral appliance for insurance, the material misrepresentation and oral-evidence rule respectively. On the end we raised a new concept, namely the judicial estoppel. courts consistently have recognized that the practice of taking inconsistent positions before courts and regulatory agencies damages the integrity of the nation’s judicial system, leads to needless litigation and embarrassing inconsistencies in court decisions, and weakens the public’s confidence in the judicial system. Courts thus developed the doctrine of judicial estoppel as a means of preventing manipulation of the judicial system. In the last part, We make some suggestions for our insurance law making. It is without any doubt a trend to further open our insurance market, thus in order to fully protect the interest of the insured and perfect our insurance law, we have to draw the nutrient from the western law.更多还原