Corporations, etc. increasingly commit illegal acts intentionally or maliciously to create more revenues despite the expected damage to consumers. Our recent hot social issues in South Korea, such as the humidifier disinfectant incident or the manipulation of discharged gases called for the stern legal measures. The punitive damages system of British and American laws has been highlighted as an alternative to such stern measures. The adoption of punitive damages system has long been insisted by the academia, NGOs, political parties, etc. However, severe arguments over how to accept and implement this system have been repeatedly made thus far, and our law has thus far reserved its answer to the question. Regarding the types of adopting the system, various measures have been proposed; a suggestion that our Civil Act should admit this system according to its interpretation; a suggestion to amend and legislate the Civil Act to that effect; and a suggestion to legislate a separate general law to that effect outside the Civil Law or to incorporate the system into the special law. If the adoption of the system is assumed to be required, discussions should begin with the theory of interpretation of the current Civil Law which is a general law that regulates legal relationships between relevant parties in the civil society. This is because the special law should take into account the general law, and the theory of legislation should premise the theory of interpretation. Thus, this study briefly reviews the British-American punitive damages system, identifies the structure and characteristics of South Korea's damages law in terms of illegal acts and liability for them, and determines the boundary between the acceptability of this system in terms of the interpretation of the system and legal aspects.