Interpretation of Article 506 of the Civil Code

The following exemption clauses in Article 506 of the Civil Code are invalid:

(1) Causing personal injury to the other party;

(2) Causing property losses to the other party due to intentional or gross negligence.

Interpretation of terms

This clause is the stipulation that the exemption clause of the contract is invalid.

The exemption clause of contract refers to the contract clause that both parties reach an agreement in advance in the contract to exempt the liability for damages that may occur in the future. The characteristics of the exemption clause in the contract are: (1) agreed exemption clause; (2) The exemption clause must be concluded in an express way and stipulated in the contract; (3) The exemption clause is exempt and is quite binding on the parties. Therefore, this article only stipulates the reasons why the exemption clause is invalid, and the exemption clause that excludes these two specific reasons is effective. The exemption clauses of the contract are divided into personal injury exemption clauses and property loss exemption clauses.

1. Personal injury exemption clause is a clause in the contract that exempts the parties from personal injury caused during the performance of the contract and exempts the other party from liability for compensation. This exemption clause is invalid. According to this regulation, in all labor contracts, if both parties agree to exempt the liability for personal injury compensation, it is not legally binding and cannot exempt the employer from the first liability for compensation. However, there are exceptions to this provision. For example, in competitive sports, it is effective to stipulate in advance that players who are exempt from personal injury are exempt from civil liability for some serious and dangerous projects. For example, in boxing, Sanda, Taekwondo, fighting and other competitions, if one party's fault causes personal injury to the other party, it will not be liable for compensation; Only those who intentionally hurt each other are liable for compensation.

2. If the property damage of the other party is caused by intentional or gross negligence, it is also exempted from liability and belongs to the invalid exemption clause. Such an exemption clause will give the other party a legitimate reason to damage other people's property. If all parties to the contract can sign an exemption clause in the contract to avoid any legal sanctions, the victim will not be able to obtain legal relief under the constraint of the exemption clause. Therefore, the exemption clause is deemed invalid.

Case review

Su Moumou and Foshan Nanhai wanda plaza Co., Ltd. confirmed the invalid contract dispute case.

primary facts

The defendant is a limited liability company engaged in real estate development and operation. On May 4th, 20 14, the plaintiff paid the defendant a deposit of 50,000 yuan to subscribe for a house in Nanhai. 2065438+On September 24th, 2004, the plaintiff and the defendant signed the Commodity House Sales Contract of Guangdong Province, stipulating that the plaintiff would purchase ×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

On the same day, the original defendant and the defendant also signed a supplementary agreement to the contract, which made supplementary agreements on terms such as delivery method, payment and overdue payment, house delivery, planning and design change, house decoration and equipment adjustment, supporting facilities and equipment, handling property registration procedures, house quality and warranty, early property management, advertising effect and demonstration unit, contract termination responsibility and force majeure.

2065438+On June 28th, 2005, the defendant issued an invoice to confirm receipt of the plaintiff's payment of 2269245 yuan.

On August 9, 2005, the plaintiff signed the house handover form.

On may 20 16 1 1 day, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit on this case. The plaintiff made it clear in the lawsuit that fan noise and restaurant exhaust emissions affect his rights, and his claim should be based on the premise that the supplementary agreement is invalid, so this case is prosecuted.

court decision

The court held that the plaintiff signed the Supplementary Agreement to the Contract at the same time as signing the Commercial Housing Sales Contract in Guangdong Province. Now the plaintiff only claims that the supplementary agreement to the contract is invalid, and its claim cannot be established. The reasons are as follows: (1) The signing of the supplementary agreement conforms to the trading habits of house sales. In practice, real estate sales enterprises will draw up more detailed terms when signing the house sales contract, so as to further clarify the rights and obligations of both parties, that is, the defendant in this case did not deliberately draw up a supplementary agreement to increase the plaintiff's responsibility and exempt himself from responsibility. (2) The signing subject of the supplementary agreement is legal, the defendant is an enterprise legal person with real estate development and sales qualifications, and the plaintiff is a natural person with full capacity for civil conduct. Both parties have the capacity to sign the supplementary agreement. This supplementary agreement shall be established and come into force as of the date of signature or seal of the original and the defendant. (3) The relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant is a commercial housing sales contract. The defendant's main responsibility is to provide the plaintiff with a house that meets the legal requirements and assist in handling the real estate license. Accordingly, the plaintiff's main rights are the expropriation, transfer procedures and use of the house. This part of the rights and obligations have been agreed in the Commercial Housing Sales Contract, and the supplementary agreement does not necessarily eliminate or aggravate the above rights and obligations. (4) The plaintiff has paid all the purchase price and gone through the house handover procedures. After the plaintiff has completed the certificate of real estate ownership, the house sales contract between the original and the defendant has been fulfilled, and the agreement on contract performance in the supplementary agreement does not affect the rights and obligations of the original and the defendant. Now it is meaningless for the plaintiff to claim that this part of the agreement is invalid. (5) The agreement on the plaintiff's commitment to give up his rights in other clauses of the supplementary agreement should be based on the impact of the defendant's breach of contract on the plaintiff's rights and the actual situation of the dispute, considering whether the clause is binding on the plaintiff, so some agreements are certainly not invalid. When the plaintiff's rights are damaged to claim rights, if the defendant fights with this agreement, the court shall examine whether the rights and obligations stipulated in this part are equivalent and whether the defendant can be exempted from liability with this agreement. However, in this case, the plaintiff did not claim any substantive rights from the defendant, so it is not appropriate for the court to directly determine the validity of this part of the clause. (6) With regard to the problem that fan noise and catering waste gas affect the rights raised by the plaintiff, the plaintiff enjoys the right to use the house based on property rights after purchasing the house. When his rights are damaged, he can claim rights from any infringer based on the protection of property rights. The plaintiff thinks that the reason that the supplementary agreement is invalid as the premise of claiming rights cannot be established. To sum up, the facts and reasons for the plaintiff's request to confirm that the supplementary agreement to the contract is invalid are not sufficient, and the court does not support the plaintiff's claim according to law.

Expert review

The focus of the dispute in this case is whether the exemption clause in the supplementary agreement involved is invalid. In the process of concluding a contract, if the actual status of the two parties is not equal, one party may take advantage of its own advantages to ask the other party to accept unreasonable exemption clauses, which in essence causes the parties' freedom of expression. In order to correct this defect, the "Contract Law" stipulates that the exemption clause that causes personal injury to the other party, intentional or gross negligence causes the other party's property loss is invalid. In this case, the content of the supplementary agreement involved in the case conforms to the practice of housing transactions, and the defendant did not increase the plaintiff's liability or exempt himself from liability, which did not conform to the invalid exemption clause. The court rejected the plaintiff's claim, which is worthy of recognition.

This article is excerpted from Interpretation and Annotation of People's Republic of China (PRC) Civil Code.