Section 40: Connected civil case: which court

Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section

1. Supreme Court Judgment No. 613/2567 (2024)

   Section 40 provides that a civil case connected with a criminal case may be brought either in the court trying the criminal case or in the court with civil jurisdiction, and that the civil trial follows the Civil Procedure Code. It is the classifying provision. The binding effect is elsewhere: section 46 requires the court, in giving judgment on the civil part, to take the facts as they appear in the criminal judgment. So where the same plaintiff has already failed in a criminal prosecution on the same facts, the acquittal binds them as a party, the person prosecuted is treated as not having committed the wrongful act for the purposes of the civil part, and a claim against that person's employing agency fails with it. That is a question of public order.

   The plaintiff had prosecuted an official under Penal Code sections 84 and 220 for instigating the offence of causing a fire dangerous to persons or to the property of others. That prosecution ended in a final acquittal, the trial court holding that the evidence did not establish the offence. The plaintiff then sued the official's employing agency in tort on the same facts. The Supreme Court held that this was a civil case connected with a criminal case within section 40, that the criminal judgment bound the plaintiff as a party, and that under section 46 the court in the civil part must take the facts as found in the criminal judgment, so the official was treated as not having committed the wrongful act. The plaintiff therefore had no authority to sue the agency under section 5 of the Act on Liability for Wrongful Acts of Officials B.E. 2539, and the point was one of public order.

2. Supreme Court Judgment No. 3133/2568 (2025)

   Because the trial of a civil case connected with a criminal case follows the Civil Procedure Code under Section 40, the Supreme Court may take up an error of public order in the civil part of its own motion and correct it, under sections 142 (5), 246 and 252 of that Code read with Section 40.

   The court of first instance had not stated that the interest rate could be varied by royal decree issued by the Ministry of Finance, and the Court of Appeal Region 5 had not corrected that. The Supreme Court held the omission wrong and took the point up of its own motion as one of public order, correcting the judgment under sections 142 (5), 246 and 252 of the Civil Procedure Code read with Section 40.

Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.