How Is a Civil Case Different from a Civil Case? — One Incident, Two Courtrooms

What Happened in the Parking Lot

Jihoon got into an argument with a neighbor over a parking spot in their apartment parking lot. As words grew harsher, the neighbor shoved Jihoon hard, and Jihoon fell, breaking his wrist. It cost 3 million won in hospital bills, and he spent a month wearing a cast. Jihoon and this incident are made up to help with understanding.

Jihoon has two wishes. One is that the neighbor receives punishment fitting what they did. The other is that the neighbor compensates him for the hospital bills and the hardship of spending a month in a cast.

Both wishes came from one incident, but South Korean courts handle the two in separate trials. Whether to punish is decided in one courtroom, and whether to pay money is decided in another. The two courtrooms differ in the people who open the doors, the questions asked inside, the rules for evaluating proof, and what is carried out after it ends.

This article is written about the trial procedures of South Korean courts. It is a general explanation of how the system works, not a text telling what to do in any specific incident. Taking Jihoon all the way through, we will open the doors of both courtrooms one after the other.

The Courtroom Asking About Hospital Bills

We look first at the side asking to be compensated for money. A civil lawsuit is a dispute between people—for example, a trial where the court sorts out who has to compensate whom for what and by how much. It is also called a civil trial. Ji-hoon’s hospital bill problem falls into this category.

The basis Ji-hoon can lean on is in the Civil Act. The Civil Act stipulates that "a person who inflicts damage on another person by an unlawful act caused by intention or negligence shall be liable to compensate for that damage" (Article 750 of the Civil Act). Whether on purpose or because of a lack of care, if you inflict damage on someone else through an action that violates the law, it means you must compensate for that damage. An unlawful act is an incident where someone inflicts damage on another by committing an act violating the law with intention or negligence. The title of this article is also "Contents of Unlawful Acts."

There is one more type of damage that must be compensated for, besides hospital bills. The Civil Act separately stipulates that a person who harms another person's body or inflicts mental distress is also liable to compensate for "damage other than property" (Paragraph 1 of Article 751 of the Civil Act). A solatium is money that compensates for damage that cannot be immediately counted in money, such as the suffering experienced by the body and mind. If a hospital bill of 3 million KRW is damage that can be counted with a receipt, the hardship of spending a month in a cast is the damage that the solatium takes charge of.

The civil courtroom does not only deal with accidents. Failing to deliver on a promise is also the domain of civil law. The Civil Act stipulates that if the indebted side fails to fulfill the promised content, the receiving side can claim damages, excluding cases where it has become impossible to fulfill without intention or negligence on the indebted side (Article 390 of the Civil Act). Whether it is an accident or a promise, what the civil courtroom deals with is damage that arose between people.

A civil lawsuit begins when the side that wants to receive money submits documents to the court. A person trying to file a lawsuit must submit those documents to the court (Paragraph 1 of Article 248 of the Civil Act), and the documents must state who is suing whom, for what, and for what reason (Paragraph 1 of Article 249 of the Civil Act).

The plaintiff is the person who filed the civil lawsuit, and the defendant is the opposing party. If Ji-hoon files a lawsuit, Ji-hoon becomes the plaintiff, and the neighbor becomes the defendant. The door to the civil courtroom is opened directly by the side claiming they suffered damage.

The Plaintiff Decides How Much to Claim

Let us suppose that Ji-hoon has decided to file a lawsuit. Who decides whether to claim 3 million won for hospital bills or to add emotional distress damages on top of that? Ji-hoon decides.

The principle of party disposition is a principle of civil litigation that leaves it to the will of the parties whether to start a lawsuit, what and how far to dispute, and when to end it. Along with one other principle we will see later, this principle is considered one of the most important fundamental principles in the civil litigation of countries that have chosen liberal democracy and market economies since modern times (KCI ART001355217). If Ji-hoon does not file a lawsuit, this courtroom will not open. The matter of ending the dispute is also, in principle, left to the will of the parties.

The court also makes judgments within that framework. The court must judge what the plaintiff specifically requested within that scope (KCI ART002985060). If a judgment exceeds the upper limit of the amount requested by the plaintiff, it is treated as a judgment that violated the principle of party disposition (DOI: 10.17248/knulaw..89.202504.135). If Ji-hoon claimed 3 million won in hospital bills, the court cannot rule to give him more than that, even if the damages appear greater in the court's view.

The principle that gathering and submitting the facts and evidence to be disputed is also the responsibility of the parties works alongside this (KCI ART001355217). The Civil Procedure Act stipulates that "facts confessed to by a party" do not need to be proven in court (Civil Procedure Act Article 288). If a neighbor admits in the courtroom, "It is true that I pushed him," Ji-hoon does not need to separately prove the fact that he was pushed. However, if it is proven that the admission differed from the truth and was a mistake, it can be retracted.

The civil courtroom makes judgments within the framework drawn by the plaintiff. The two people decide what to ask for and what to dispute, and the court settles the matter between them.

A Court of Punishment

Now for the other wind, punishment. A criminal trial is a proceeding where the state examines whether a person's action is a crime and, if it is a crime, decides what punishment to give. It is also called a criminal trial. The Criminal Act defines acts that inflict physical assault on a person and acts that cause bodily injury to a person as crimes (Article 257, Paragraph 1 and Article 260, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Act). Therefore, the neighbor's action can also be dealt with in this court. This article does not examine which specific crime Ji-hoon's case corresponds to.

There is a person in this court who takes the side of the state. A prosecutor is a legal professional who decides whether to bring a criminal case to trial and represents the state side in court. The Criminal Procedure Act stipulates that prosecutors and judicial police officers (the term the provisions use to call the police) must cooperate with each other in investigating, bringing to trial, and continuing trials, and it divides the work: prosecutors are responsible for bringing cases to trial and carrying them through, while judicial police officers are responsible for investigation (Article 195, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Procedure Act).

Bringing someone to trial has a name. Indictment is the act of a prosecutor requesting the court to try a person's crime, and the legal provisions call this the institution of prosecution. The Criminal Procedure Act defines this in a single sentence. "Prosecution shall be instituted and carried out by a prosecutor." (Article 246 of the Criminal Procedure Act) The door to the criminal court is opened by the prosecutor.

Ji-hoon cannot open this door himself. Ji-hoon's seat in the criminal court is that of the victim. The Constitution stipulates that "Criminal victims may make statements in the trial procedures of the relevant case under the conditions prescribed by Act" (Article 27, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution). Victims can speak in court, but the party that initiates and drives the trial is the prosecutor.

A defendant is a person who has been indicted by a prosecutor and put on a criminal trial. The Criminal Procedure Act stipulates that the effect of a prosecution extends "only to the person designated by the prosecutor as the defendant" (Article 248, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Procedure Act). The name is similar to the defendant in a civil court, but the position is different. A defendant in a civil case is the counterpart chosen by the plaintiff, and a defendant in a criminal case is the counterpart chosen by the prosecutor.

What the criminal court hands down at the end is punishment. The punishments prescribed by the Criminal Act are nine types: the death penalty, imprisonment with prison labor, imprisonment without prison labor, qualification loss, qualification suspension, a fine, detention, a minor fine, and confiscation (Article 41 of the Criminal Act). This list does not include compensating for the victim's damages. South Korea strictly separates civil procedures and criminal procedures (DOI: 10.22826/jpl.2016.14.2.183), so even if the neighbor receives punishment in the criminal trial, that alone does not cover Ji-hoon's hospital bills. One narrow exception built into this wall will be looked at later.

The Prosecutor May Not Open the Door

Let us suppose Mr. Ji-hoon's case goes to a prosecutor after passing through investigation. Even if there seems to be a crime, the prosecutor does not necessarily indict.

The principle of prosecutorial discretion allows a prosecutor to choose not to indict by weighing various circumstances, even when there is a suspicion of a crime. The Criminal Procedure Act stipulates that "A prosecutor may decide not to institute a public prosecution by taking into consideration the matters under Article 51 of the "Criminal Act," and the title of this article itself is the principle of prosecutorial discretion (Article 247 of the Criminal Procedure Act). This means the path of not sending a case to trial after weighing the circumstances prescribed by law is open to the prosecutor.

There are also devices to check this discretion. Regarding cases that prosecutors have not indicted, there is a system through which the person who filed a complaint asking for punishment seeks a judgment from the court again, and one paper views the essence of that system as control over the prosecutor's monopoly on indictment and prosecutorial discretion (KCI ART002125152).

Even if there is a suspicion, the door to the criminal courtroom is not always open, and whether to open the door or not is largely decided by the prosecutor. The person who opens the door of a civil courtroom is different.

Two courts ask different questions

Looking at the same push, two courts examine different places. The criminal court looks at the neighbor. It asks whether this action is a crime and what punishment is deserved. The civil court looks at the damage Ji-hoon suffered. It asks what was lost and how much must be compensated.

Because civil and criminal lawsuits have different purposes and ideologies, many differences also arise in their rules. The same paper adds that there are not a few commonalities between the two (KCI ART002120527). One paper examines the roles and limits of the two responsibilities by placing the actor at the center of criminal responsibility and the victim at the center of civil responsibility (DOI: 10.22825/juris.2018.1.43.001).

Putting the differences we have seen together in one place looks like this.

Same Event, Different Conclusions

In a criminal court, the side that must prove the case is the prosecutor. There is a standard for how much must be proven. Reasonable doubt refers to a doubt that can be entertained in light of common sense, and to find someone guilty in a criminal trial, proof must be established to the extent that no such doubt remains. The Criminal Procedure Act stipulates that "the recognition of criminal facts must reach a degree of proof where there is no reasonable doubt" (Article 307, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act). If it falls short of that degree, judgment must be made in favor of the defendant (DOI: 10.29291/kslm.2024.25.3.073). The Constitution stipulates that a criminal defendant "shall be presumed innocent until a finalized judgment of guilt is rendered" (Paragraph 4 of Article 27 of the Constitution). What this principle means in a trial is covered in "Presumption of Innocence — The Threshold the Prosecutor Must Cross".

The rules in a civil court may not be the same. A paper dealing with medical accidents shows this difference. In a criminal trial, the prosecutor must prove the case, and it must be proven to the extent that there is no reasonable doubt. In a civil lawsuit holding a doctor liable for damages, the burden of proof lies on the patient's side. And if it is proven to a "considerable degree or sufficient probability"—in other words, to a quite plausible degree—that the bad outcome arose due to the doctor's fault, it is presumed to be so. The author concludes that in light of the functions and purposes of the two trials, the degrees of proof are bound to differ, and the resulting difference in outcomes is inevitable (DOI: 10.29291/kslm.2024.25.3.073). What this paper dealt with is the single domain of causality in medical accidents.

Among cases where the conclusions diverged, there were even instances where the two courts differed on the very person held responsible. In a case where a patient died because cooperation between hospital departments did not take place properly, the judicial precedent pointed out flaws in the hospital organization as a whole and acknowledged the hospital's liability for damages, while denying the criminal liability of the department head who was primarily involved in the matter (DOI: 10.22397/bml.2022.28.31). The side ordered to pay money was the hospital, and the side whose criminal liability was denied was the individual doctor. The two courts differed in both their conclusions and the persons they examined.

Jihun's case differs in shape from the hospital example because the opposing party is a single neighbor. Still, it is the same in that the two courts measure with different rules, so situations can arise where the criminal court views that reasonable doubt remains and does not see the neighbor as guilty, while the civil court rules that compensation must be paid for Jihun's damages. The two courts measure the same event with different rules, and therefore their conclusions can diverge.

From the Criminal Court to Hospital Bills

A bridge is built between two courtrooms. A compensation order is a system where the court, when sentencing a defendant in a criminal trial, simultaneously orders them to compensate for the damage caused by the crime. For certain crimes, the court may order compensation for direct material damage, medical expenses, and emotional distress, either ex officio or upon the victim's application, and the Act on Special Cases Concerning Expedition, etc. of Judicial Proceedings governs this system (KCI ART001438942). This system was introduced to allow victims to receive compensation through a criminal trial within a certain scope without having to go through a civil lawsuit (DOI: 10.23026/crclps.2016..50.006).

The bridge is narrow. The crimes eligible for it are limited to those enumerated in the law, and there is an evaluation that its utilization has remained low for about 40 years since its introduction in 1981. Even though there were times when applications and citations both increased significantly over a few years, the same paper attributes this to a surge in fraud crimes (DOI: 10.29305/tj.2021.02.182.296). The trial division's burden of examining damage amounts in criminal trials and the high dismissal rate are cited as the main causes (DOI: 10.23026/crclps.2025..89.001). There is also a diagnosis that difficulties arise from ordering compensation within criminal procedures, whose ideologies and procedures differ from civil lawsuits (DOI: 10.23026/crclps.2016..50.006). Even with a compensation order, the original business of the criminal court is to determine punishment.

Let us read a news headline

Suppose there is a news headline like this. It is a fabricated headline.

"Neighbor who committed parking lot assault found not guilty in criminal trial... Civil court rules 'must pay medical expenses'"

At first glance, it sounds like a contradictory ruling. Now we can read this headline divided into two courts.

The front part is the criminal court. The door of this court was opened by a prosecutor indicting, and the person standing in the court is the neighbor, who is the defendant. The not-guilty verdict can be read as meaning that the prosecutor did not prove it to the extent that no reasonable doubt remains. It is not a sentence to be read immediately as meaning that it was confirmed that there was no pushing.

The back part is the civil court. The door of this court was opened by the victim, who is the plaintiff, submitting documents, and the court judged the medical expenses within the scope claimed by the plaintiff. The fact that who must prove it and how much must be proved may not be the same as in the criminal court is as shown by the previous medical malpractice paper.

Let us look at one more headline. It is also a fabricated headline.

"Neighbor who committed parking lot assault not sent to trial"

What this headline says is only up to the point that the prosecutor did not indict, so the door of the criminal court did not open. It could be that the prosecutor judged that the evidence was insufficient, or it could be that even though there was a charge, they considered the circumstances and did not indict. From the headline alone, we cannot know which side it is. And this headline says nothing about the civil court. Opening the door of the civil court was the plaintiff's share from the beginning.

The questions to check in the two titles are two. In which court did this conclusion come out? Who opened the door of that court? If we answer the two questions, the reason why one case received two conclusions becomes visible.

Where Else to Look

How far to lower the wall between the two courts remains an open question. There is a proposal to change procedures so that the criminal court only confirms the cause of liability and the civil court is bound by that judgment (DOI: 10.17248/knulaw..81.202304.205), and proposals to expand the target crimes and the scope of compensation have also continued (DOI: 10.23026/crclps.2016..50.006).

• Why trials do not end in a single go, and what the first instance, second instance, and Supreme Court each do, are covered in "The Three-Tier Trial System and the Supreme Court — The Three Steps a Trial Climbs and Descends".
• What an acquittal in a criminal court means and does not mean is covered in "The Presumption of Innocence — The Threshold the Prosecutor Must Cross".
• How to check the conclusions that come out of court in their original text is covered in "How to Read a Judgment — A One-Line Answer and Its Reason".
• The criteria by which criminal courts accept scientific evidence are shown by the lie detector and Widmark formula installments of the series "The Yardstick of the Court — How Science and Tradition Are Verified".

Source Papers

• Constitution of the Republic of Korea Article 27 — Current (Enforced 1988.2.25) — Paragraph 4: Presumption of innocence for criminal defendants; Paragraph 5: Right of criminal victims to make statements in trial procedures.
• Civil Act Article 750 (Content of Tort) — Current (Enforced 2026.3.17) — Liability for damages of a person who causes injury to another by an unlawful act committed intentionally or negligently.
• Civil Act Article 751 (Compensation for Damages Other Than Property) — Current (Enforced 2026.3.17) — Liability to compensate for damages other than property regarding infringement on body, liberty, or reputation, or mental distress.
• Civil Act Article 390 (Non-Performance of Obligations and Compensation for Damages) — Current (Enforced 2026.3.17) — Creditor's claim for damages upon non-performance of an obligation, excluding impossibility of performance without debtor's intent or negligence.
• Civil Procedure Act Article 248 (Method of Filing Suit) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — A person intending to file a suit shall submit a complaint to the court.
• Civil Procedure Act Article 249 (Matters to be Stated in Complaint) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — The complaint shall state the parties, legal representatives, and the purport and cause of the claim.
• Civil Procedure Act Article 288 (Facts Not Requiring Proof) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — Facts confessed to by a party and notorious facts do not require proof, and a confession of a fact contrary to truth may be revoked.
• Criminal Procedure Act Article 195 (Relationship between Prosecutors and Judicial Police Officers, etc.) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — Prosecutors and judicial police officers shall cooperate in investigation, institution of prosecution, and maintenance of prosecution; prosecutors are responsible for instituting and maintaining prosecution, and judicial police officers for investigation (amended 2026.10.2).
• Criminal Procedure Act Article 246 (Principle of State Prosecution) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — Prosecution shall be instituted and carried out by a prosecutor.
• Criminal Procedure Act Article 247 (Principle of Prosecutorial Discretion) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — A prosecutor may decide not to institute prosecution by taking into consideration the matters of Article 51 of the Criminal Act.
• Criminal Procedure Act Article 307 (Principle of Evidence-Based Trial) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — The recognition of facts of a crime shall be based on proof to the extent that there is no reasonable doubt (Paragraph 2).
• Criminal Procedure Act Article 248 (Scope of Effect of Prosecution) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — The effect of prosecution extends only to the person designated as a defendant by the prosecutor.
• Criminal Act Article 41 (Kinds of Punishments) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — There are nine kinds of punishments ranging from the death penalty to confiscation.
• Criminal Act Article 257 (Injury, Injury to Lineal Ascendants) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — The crime of injuring a person's body (Paragraph 1). This article does not deal with sentencing and application.
• Criminal Act Article 260 (Assault, Assault on Lineal Ascendants) — Current (Enforced 2026.10.2) — The crime of committing an assault on a person's body (Paragraph 1). This article does not deal with sentencing and application.
• "Social System and the Development of the Principle of Disposition and the Adversary System: Focusing on the Chinese Civil Procedure Law" (2009) — KCI ART001355217 — The principle of disposition is a grand principle of civil litigation leaving the initiation, subject matter, scope, and termination of procedures to the parties' intent, and the adversary system is a principle making the collection and submission of facts and evidence the parties' authority and responsibility.
• "A Study on the Principle of Disposition Viewed from the Aspect of the Subject Matter and Scope of Judgment" (2023) — KCI ART002985060 — The court must render judgment within the scope of the matters specifically requested by the plaintiff (Review of Supreme Court Decision 2015Da49422).
• "Violation of the Principle of Disposition and the Right to Appeal: Focusing on the Right to Appeal of a Winning Plaintiff" (2025) — DOI: 10.17248/knulaw..89.202504.135 — A disposition where the relief granted exceeds the quantitative upper limit of the demand is also a type of violation of the principle of disposition, and in such cases, the winning plaintiff's right to appeal is not recognized.
• "The Essence of the Ruling Application System Seen through the Enacted Criminal Procedure Act" (2016) — KCI ART002125152 — The argument that the essence of the ruling application system is control over the prosecutor's monopoly on prosecution and prosecutorial discretion.
• "Comparative Examination of the Forms of Expression and Scope of Effect of Res Judicata by Comparing the Civil Procedure Act and the Criminal Procedure Act" (2016) — KCI ART002120527 — Although the two litigations have many legal differences due to differences in purpose and ideology, they also share common ideologies.
• "The Roles and Limits of 'Criminal Responsibility' and 'Civil Responsibility'" (2018) — DOI: 10.22825/juris.2018.1.43.001 — Examining the roles and limits of criminal responsibility centered on the actor and civil responsibility centered on the victim, it is argued that to enhance the preventive effect of civil responsibility, compensation amounts must be increased centering on consolation money.
• "A Comparative Legal Study on the Compensation Order System" (2016) — DOI: 10.22826/jpl.2016.14.2.183 — In our legal system where civil and criminal procedures are strictly separated, the compensation order adjudicates even damages within the criminal procedure, but utilization performance is low in both Korea and Germany.
• "Standards of Proof of Causality in Criminal Trials for Medical Incidents" (2024) — DOI: 10.29291/kslm.2024.25.3.073 — Criminal cases involve the prosecutor's burden of proof and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, while medical civil cases involve the patient side's burden of proof and the inference of causality by considerable probability. The conclusion is that the difference in results is inevitable.
• "Hospital Organizational Negligence: Civil Responsibility and Criminal Responsibility" (2022) — DOI: 10.22397/bml.2022.28.31 — Precedent recognized a hospital's vicarious liability in an incident where a patient died due to poor cooperation between departments, while denying the criminal responsibility of the department head.
• "A Study on the Revitalization of the Compensation Order System for the Protection of Crime Victims" (2010) — KCI ART001438942 — A system where the court orders compensation for direct material damage, medical expenses, and consolation money directly upon a guilty verdict for certain crimes, either ex officio or upon application by the victim (Special Act on Expedition of Legal Proceedings).
• "Problems of and Improvement Measures for the Compensation Order System" (2016) — DOI: 10.23026/crclps.2016..50.006 — Although it is a system intended to allow recovery of damages through criminal trial procedures without a civil lawsuit, underutilization stems from ordering compensation in criminal procedures where ideologies and procedures differ. Proposal for expanding targets and scope.
• "Evaluation of and Implications for Legislation to Revitalize Compensation Orders" (2021) — DOI: 10.29305/tj.2021.02.182.296 — Following its introduction in 1981, utilization has remained low for about 40 years, and there has been no amendment touching its basic structure, such as the limited listing of target crimes.
• "Practical Improvement Measures for Revitalizing the Compensation Order System" (2025) — DOI: 10.23026/crclps.2025..89.001 — The main causes of underutilization are the trial division's psychological burden in calculating damage amounts and the high dismissal rate.
• "Procedural Amendment Proposal for Revitalizing the Compensation Order System: Focusing on Examination of Germany's Ancillary Proceeding System" (2023) — DOI: 10.17248/knulaw..81.202304.205 — The judge's passivity is due to the heterogeneity of procedures, and an amendment is proposed to grant civil court binding force to a "Judgment Confirming the Cause of Compensation Liability".