How should I respond to a civil claim for damages?

Hello. This is a civil litigation attorney at Daeryun Law LLC.

Apart from the fact that a civil claim for damages has been filed against you, the fact that the past criminal proceedings were concluded through an agreement not to prosecute (that is, an agreement not to seek punishment) is very important.

However, the conclusion of a criminal case through settlement does not immediately mean an exemption from civil damages liability.

In other words, if the victim (the plaintiff), at the time of the criminal settlement, did not make an explicit agreement to also waive the right to claim civil damages, they can file a civil lawsuit within a certain scope.

A civil claim for damages is based on tort liability under the Civil Act, and where a person causes harm to another intentionally or negligently, the perpetrator must compensate for that harm.

However, if the victim has already received a certain amount of compensation through monetary reparation or a settlement, the court may take this into account and reduce the amount of damages or dismiss part of the claim.

If there was an agreement not to prosecute in the criminal case, it ordinarily amounts only to an expression of intent not to seek criminal punishment, and the civil right of claim subsists separately.

However, if, in the course of that agreement, it was expressly stated that no claim for damages of any kind arising from this case would be made, the plaintiff's civil claim would be evaluated as an act contrary to the principle of good faith, and being unsuitable as a requirement for the lawsuit, the civil lawsuit would be highly likely to be rejected.

Therefore, you must first confirm the specific content of the agreement through the settlement document, text messages, KakaoTalk conversations, and recordings from that time.

① Disputing the occurrence of harm and the causal relationship
It is necessary to dispute whether the injury and harm the plaintiff asserts actually have a direct causal relationship with the assault, and whether that harm continues to the present.

Even if there was a diagnosis of three weeks of treatment, if there are no particular aftereffects after the treatment ended, additional harm is highly unlikely to be recognized.

② Asserting the deduction of damages already received
If there is settlement money paid at the time of the criminal case, it must be deducted when calculating the amount of damages.

Because settlement money ordinarily includes the character of consolation money, the plaintiff's claiming consolation money again can be regarded as a double claim.

③ Asserting the illegitimacy of filing a civil lawsuit where the harm was within the scope foreseeable at the time of the agreement not to prosecute
By comprehensively considering the degree of injury caused by the assault, the victim's treatment period, and the circumstances of the settlement, you can argue that the consolation money should be reduced or can be substituted by the settlement money already paid.

Because there was a settlement in the criminal proceedings in this case, the legal effect of that settlement and the scope of the claim for damages become the issues, so the wording of the settlement document, the evidentiary relationships, and the substantiality of the harm must be precisely analyzed.

We recommend establishing a systematic response strategy based on the evidence and legal principles together with a civil litigation attorney.