Here, damages can be divided into positive damages such as medical expenses and the cost of removing pollution, negative damages caused by environmental pollution, and damages for mental suffering. Mental damages are included within the scope of damages because environmental infringement is understood not only as damage to property but as an infringement of personality rights. The wrongdoer is thus made to compensate not only for property damage, including all positive and negative damages caused by the infringement of rights in things, but also consolation money as special damages arising from property damage and consolation money for mental suffering caused by the infringement of general personality rights.

In bringing a claim for damages for a civil tort arising from environmental pollution, proving causation serves to determine who should bear liability for the damage actually incurred. But the biggest reason victims struggle in damages claims for environmental pollution is proving the causal link between the harmful act and the damage. Environmental pollution is an indirect infringement, such as air or water pollution, and most of the harm arises from harmful substances emitted through lawful business activities of companies, ultimately causing infringements of the lives, bodies and health of nearby residents.

However, environmental pollutants are emitted in small amounts over long periods, and when damage from the causative pollutant occurs it is not easy to reveal in detail the components and pathways of the causative substance, so it is not easy for the victim to prove causation. And where there are multiple wrongdoers, it is also hard to determine whose infringing act triggered the damage, so proving causation is inevitably a difficult problem for the victim.

For these reasons, if, in civil tort liability for environmental pollution, the victim is required to prove causation as in ordinary torts, the victim is very likely to be unable to bring a lawsuit at all. Proving causation in environmental pollution litigation requires expert knowledge about the pollution source, and in reality victims do not have such knowledge. Therefore, the need to ease the degree of proof of causation in environmental pollution litigation has been raised in order to remedy victims' damages.

After the case-law doctrine the material covers, the Act on Liability for Environmental Damage and Relief Thereof took effect in January 2016, so operators of certain facilities bear no-fault liability for environmental pollution damage, and causation is presumed if there is a considerable probability that the facility caused the damage. Adding how the case law's probability theory differs from this Act's presumption-of-causation provision, and how it connects with the no-fault liability in Article 44 of the Framework Act on Environmental Policy, lets you raise the completeness of an assignment spanning environmental law and civil law. Adding one or two related cases is even better.