The nature of one spouse's tortious debt has been controversial among legal scholars and practical legal workers. Article 1064 of China's Civil Code stipulates the criteria for determining marital joint debts, but has not settled the controversy. There is a dispute among scholars as to whether Article 1064 of the Civil Code can be applied to the tortious debts of one spouse. In applying Article 1064 of the Civil Code to determine the nature of the tortious debts of one spouse, the judicial practices have adopted different identification standards. Therefore, there is no unified view among scholars and practical legal workers on determining the nature of the tortious debts of one spouse, which needs further discussion.
This paper mainly employs the method of interpretation. Through the method of interpretation, this paper discusses whether Article 1064 of the Civil Code could be used to identify the nature of the tortious debt of one spouse and how to solve it.
Compared with previous studies, the innovation of this paper mainly lies in the following two points. First, different from the mainstream view, this paper supports that Article 1064 of the Civil Code can be used to determine the nature of one spouse's tortious debt. Second, as the mainstream view of the existing studies denies that Article 1064 of the Civil Code can be used to solve the issue of determining the nature of one spouse's tortious debt, existing studies do not discuss how to use Article 1064 of the Civil Code to solve the issue above. Based on the first innovation, this paper explains how to apply Article 1064 of the Civil Code to solve the issue of determining the nature of one spouse's tortious debt. This paper holds that Article 1064 of the Civil Code provides three criteria for determining the nature of the tortious debt of one spouse. The first criterion is the expression of the spouses' common intention as the joint legal act, the key point of which is whether the spouses and the injured party have reached an agreement to transform the tortious debts of one spouse into a joint debt of the spouses. The second criterion is the expression of the spouses' common intention as the co-existing debt, the key point of which is whether the infringed party can prove that the spouses have reached an agreement to transform the tortious debts of one spouse into a joint debt. The third criterion is using the debt for the spouses' joint living, production, and operation. Whether the debt has been used for the joint living, production, and operation of the spouses should be defined by the utility theory of value, and the scope of the joint living, production, and operation of the spouses varies depending on the type of debt.
This paper clarifies the legal basis and the criteria for identifying the nature of the tortious debts of one spouse. This is conducive to calming down theoretical disputes, unifying judicial adjudication, and fairly protecting both spouses' and creditors' legitimate rights and interests.