Section 439
Statutory text (Thai original)
บุคคลผู้จำต้องคืนทรัพย์อันผู้อื่นต้องเสียไปเพราะละเมิดแห่งตนนั้น ยังต้องรับผิดชอบตลอดถึงการที่ทรัพย์นั้นทำลายลงโดยอุบัติเหตุ หรือการคืนทรัพย์ตกเป็นพ้นวิสัยเพราะเหตุอย่างอื่นโดยอุบัติเหตุ หรือทรัพย์นั้นเสื่อมเสียลงโดยอุบัติเหตุนั้นด้วย เว้นแต่เมื่อการที่ทรัพย์สินทำลาย หรือตกเป็นพ้นวิสัยจะคืน หรือเสื่อมเสียนั้น ถึงแม้ว่าจะมิได้มีการทำละเมิด ก็คงจะต้องตกไปเป็นไปอย่างนั้นอยู่เอง
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
A person who is bound to return a thing of which he has deprived another by a wrongful act is also responsible for the accidental destruction of the thing, or for accidental impossibility of returning it arising from any other cause, or for its accidental deterioration, unless destruction or the impossibility of returning it or the deterioration would have happened even if the wrongful act had not been committed.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 439 is part of Book 2 (Obligations) of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. This entry is awaiting firm-authored commentary; the statutory text above is verbatim from the Office of the Council of State (OCS Krisdika) Thai source, with the English translation from the FAO/UN FAOLEX repository. Always rely on the Thai original for legal proceedings.
Cited in 2 Supreme Court decisions (1948 to 1992)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 237/2491 (1948)
- Decision 3091/2535 (1992)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 439 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 439. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-439/ (accessed 8 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 439 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-439/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-439/"><p>A person who is bound to return a thing of which he has deprived another by a wrongful act is also responsible for the accidental destruction of the thing, or for accidental impossibility of returning it arising from any other cause, or for its accidental…</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 439 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-439/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.