Section 291 Does Not Reach an Omission: Acquittal of the Station Master คำพิพากษาฎีกาที่ 983/2508: มาตรา 291 ไม่รวมถึงการละเว้น ยกฟ้องผู้ทำหน้าที่แทนนายสถานี

DÉCISION DE LA COUR SUPRÊME N° 983/2508
Année : 1965 (BE 2508)
Relevant Code Sections: Criminal, Section(s) 291

RÉSUMÉ
An assistant station master acting for the station master directed a pointsman to change a point. The pointsman changed it and failed to set it back, two trains collided and people died. The Supreme Court dismissed the Section 291 charge against the assistant station master, holding that Section 291 does not extend to omissions and that his failure to inspect the point was a breach of regulations rather than a negligent act which directly caused the deaths.

FAITS DE L'AFFAIRE
Le chef de gare a omis d'inspecter un aiguillage, ce qui a entraîné une collision ferroviaire mortelle.

DÉCISION DU TRIBUNAL
An offence under Section 291 requires a negligent act which is the direct cause of death, and the section does not reach omissions. Where the law intends to punish an omission it says so expressly, as in Sections 154, 157 and 162. The first defendant, acting for the station master, was entitled to direct the second defendant to change the point and had nothing further to do with it. The second defendant changed the point and did not set it back, and the trains collided. The first defendant's failure to inspect the point before the train arrived was a failure to comply with regulations, which is a different thing from negligence, and the direct cause of the collision was the second defendant's act alone. The charge against the first defendant under Section 291 was dismissed and the rest of the judgment affirmed.

ANALYSE JURIDIQUE
The holding people take from this case, that a supervisor is not automatically liable for a subordinate's error, is right but secondary. The rule that carries it is narrower and more useful: Section 291 punishes a negligent act, and an omission is not an act for its purposes.

The Court's reasoning is structural rather than factual. Where the Penal Code means to criminalise a failure to act it does so in terms, and it gives three examples from the offences of officials. Section 291 contains no such wording, so a defendant whose only conduct is a failure to do what a regulation required has not committed it, whatever the consequences. That leaves the disciplinary route for the omission and the criminal route for whoever actually did the thing that killed.

On causation, the Court identified a single direct cause and attributed it to one person. It was not the mechanism that failed; it was the pointsman moving the point and leaving it moved.

IMPLICATIONS PRATIQUES
Section 291 punishes a negligent act. A failure to do what a regulation required is not an act for this purpose, and where the Penal Code means to punish an omission it says so in terms. Anyone facing a Section 291 charge should separate what he is said to have done from what he is said to have left undone, and identify the single direct cause of the death. A disciplinary breach and a criminal offence are different things.

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