LEAD: Wakayama woman ordered to pay damages for curry-poisoning.

WAKAYAMA, Japan, Dec. 25 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DETAILS, CHANGING AMOUNT OF DAMAGES)

The Wakayama District Court on Thursday ordered Masumi Hayashi, who was sentenced to death over a curry-poisoning case in Wakayama in 1998, to pay some 118 million yen in damages in a civil suit filed by victims and victim's relatives.

Hayashi, 42, was found guilty in the same court a year ago of murdering four people and injuring 63 others by lacing with arsenic curried stew eaten at a community festival in the city on July 25, 1998.

Presiding Judge Tadashi Isoo said in handing down the ruling, ''It could be gathered that the defendant put the arsenic into the curried stew. It is clear she intended to injure the people as it is difficult to believe the substance was put in by accident.''

Following the conclusion of the criminal trial, 38 of the injured people and the relatives of three of the four who died filed the damages suit earlier this year.

Hayashi never appeared in the court but submitted a petition in which she claimed her innocence and asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed. The petition said she did not lace the curried stew with arsenic and contested the charges filed by the plaintiffs as the criminal case is in the appeal process.

Legal experts say that despite the ruling, it will be difficult for the victims to obtain the compensation money as Hayashi said she has no means to make payments.

Relatives of three of the people who died -- Takatoshi Taninaka, 64, Takaaki Tanaka, 53, and Miyuki Torii, 16 -- had sought 10 million yen each from Hayashi, a former insurance saleswoman, while the 38 plaintiffs had sought a total of 107.5 million yen.

The kin of the fourth victim, Hirotaka Hayashi, 10, did not join the suit because they had lodged a separate damages suit at the district court against a hospital in the city for failing to treat the boy properly after he was rushed there.

Hayashi was sentenced to death for committing mass murder last December at the Wakayama District Court, but she has appealed the ruling to the Osaka High Court.