定金责任的惩罚性及其合理控制  

The Nature of Punishment of Liability of Deposit and Its Reasonable Control

作　　者：谢鸿飞[1,2,3] Xie Hongfei

机构地区：[1]中国社会科学院法学研究所 [2]中国社会科学院法学研究所私法研究中心 [3]中国社会科学院大学法学院

出　　处：《法学》2023年第3期83-98,共16页Law Science

基　　金：国家社科基金重点项目“民法典实质债法规范体系研究”(批准号:22AFX015)的阶段性成果。

摘　　要：定金在我国交易实践中的重要性与其在理论上的受关注度不成比例。定金不是物上保证,也非独立的金钱担保,它和违约金均为债权的一般担保。定金责任作为违约责任方式的定位,为法律调控定金责任提供了逻辑前提。定金的固有功能决定了定金责任的惩罚性色彩通常比违约金责任更浓厚。我国《民法典》对定金责任的三种适用控制都存在问题:将定金合同定性为实践性合同缺乏理论依据,且实务上容易引发道德风险;合同标的额20%的上限有时使定金责任对违约补偿不足,有时又远高于违约损失;仅适用于导致合同目的不能实现的根本违约行为也与契约自由扞格,亦无法与定金的现代运用场景相匹配。定金与违约金功能的高度相似性决定了定金责任应类推适用违约金酌减规范。定金、违约金等违约赔偿约款确定的是第二次合同义务或转化义务,而非违约责任,通过惩罚性赔偿法定原则可限制其惩罚性,由此可统合各类违约赔偿约款的法律适用。The importance of deposit in China's trading practice is out of proportion to its theoretical attention.Deposit is neither material guarantee nor independent money guarantee,which is a kind of general guarantee of creditor's rights along with liquidated damages.As an approach of default liability,deposit liability provides a logical premise to regulate deposit liability in law.The inherent function of the deposit determines that the punitive color of the deposit liability is usually stronger than of the liquidated damages liability.There exist problems in the three kinds of application and control of deposit liability in Chinese Civil Code.Characterizing deposit contract as practical contract lacks theoretical basis and is easy to lead to moral hazard in practice.The upper limit of 20%of the contract subject matter sometimes makes the deposit liability less than the compensation for breach of contract,and sometimes is much higher than the loss.It is only applicable to the fundamental breach of contract that makes the purpose of the contract impossible to achieve,which is incompatible with the freedom of contract and cannot match the application scenario of modern deposits.The high similarity between the functions of the deposit and of the liquidated damages determines that the liability for the deposit should be analogously applied to the standard of reducing the liquidated damages.Deposits clauses,liquidated damages clauses and other liquidated damages clauses determine the second contractual obligation or conversion obligation,not the liability for breach of contract.The punitive nature of the deposit can be limited through the statutory principle of punitive damages,so that the legal application of various types of liquidated damages can be integrated.

关 键 词：定金罚则 定金责任 违约金 违约定金 解约定金 

分 类 号：D923.6[政治法律—民商法学]