Do children who cause accidents have to compensate for damage?

Children walk across the road and cause traffic accidents, are they in charge of compensating for damage?

FDVN’s opinions:

Thank you for concerning FDVN’s legal services. Regarding your consulting requests, after studying the relevant legal documents, FDVN Law Firm would like to give you the following advice:

According to Article 584 of Civil Code 2015, grounds giving rise to liability to compensate for damage include:

“1. A person intentionally or unintentionally harming the life, health, honor, dignity, reputation, property, or other legal rights or interests of a person, must compensate for such damage, unless otherwise prescribed in this Code or relevant laws.

2. The person who causes damage shall be discharged from liability for compensation in a case where the damage incurs due to force majeure events or at the entire fault of the aggrieved person, unless otherwise agreed or otherwise prescribed by law.

3. If a property causes damage, its owner or possessor must compensate for the damage, except for the damage prescribed in Clause 2 of this Article.”

Pursuant to the above provisions, pedestrians crossing the road in contravention of the law and causing traffic accidents must pay compensation for the damage.

Pursuant to Article 73 of Children law 2016, “A child is a human being below the age of 16”

Pursuant to Article 586 of Civil Code 2015, the capacity of individuals for liability to compensate for damage is provided as follows:

“1. A person of eighteen years of age or older who causes damage shall be personally liable to compensate.

2. Where a minor under fifteen years of age causes damage, his or her parents, if any, must compensate for the total damage. If the parents have insufficient property to compensate and the minor who has caused the damage has property of his or her own, such property shall be used to satisfy the outstanding amount of compensation, except in the cases provided in Article 599 of this Code.

Where a person who is between fifteen and eighteen years of age causes damage, such person must compensate by recourse to his or her own property. If such person has insufficient property to compensate, the parents of such person must satisfy the outstanding amount by recourse to their own property.

3. Where a minor, legally incapacitated person, person with limited cognition and behavior control, causes damage but there is a guardian, such guardian shall use the property of the ward to compensate. If the ward has no or insufficient property to compensate, the guardian must do so by recourse to the property of the guardian. If the guardian is able to prove that he or she was not at fault with respect to guardianship, the guardian shall not be required to use its property to compensate.”

Thus, when children walk across the street in contravention of the law and cause accidents, they must compensate for the damage. Depending on their age, the limit of compensation will be different. The person who is directly compensated for the damage is specified as per the above law.

Above is FDVN Law Firm's opinion for your consulting requests based on studying the relevant legal provisions. Hopefully, FDVN's advice would be helpful to you.

Nguyen Thi Lan Anh - FDVN Law Firm

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