身體健康侵害慰撫金之實證研究：2008年至2012年地方法院醫療糾紛與車禍案件

Pain and Suffering Damages for Injury: An Empirical Study of District Court Cases in Taiwan

民法第195條給予身體健康受侵害者非財產上損害賠償，而每年依據本條判給被害人慰撫金之案件有數千件，但法官實際上依據何種因素酌定慰撫金，尚未有嚴謹、深入、大規模的量化實證研究。本文以2008年到2012年間地方法院判決為對象，探究法官酌定身體健康侵害慰撫金之態樣。數據資料庫包括抽樣期間內全部的醫療糾紛案件與10分之1的車禍案件。運用線性迴歸模型，本文發現醫療費用與受傷程度均與慰撫金呈正相關，且此相關有統計上顯著。勞動力損失等財產上損害賠償之數額，則對慰撫金沒有統計上顯著之影響。受害者年紀在醫療糾紛案件有負的影響，但在車禍案件沒有顯著影響。有證據顯示，地方法院法官有運用慰撫金之「調整補充機能」，以賠償傷者無法充分受償的財產損失。

Article 195 of the Taiwan Civil Code awards pain and suffering damages to injured tort victims. Thousands of cases each year award such damages accordingly. Yet no large-scale, sophisticated empirical studies have been conducted to detect the pattern of assessment of pain and suffering damages. Using all medical malpractice cases and one-tenth of the randomly sampled car accident cases at the district court level from 2008 to 2012 in OLS regression models, this article explores how judges set pain and suffering damages. Our findings show that both medical expenses and level of injury have positive and statistically significant effects on the amount of pain and suffering damages. The extent of lost working capacity and other pecuniary damages have no statistically significant effect on the non-pecuniary damages. Victim’s age has a negative effect on pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice cases, while there is no such effect in car accident cases. There is evidence to support the scholarly conjecture that judges use their discretion in setting pain and suffering damages to do justice to plaintiffs who are unable to receive sufficient pecuniary damages for evidentiary or other reasons.