  We show that contrary to the claim made by Hallin and Liljenberg in Phys.
Rev. D52 1150,(1995), (hep-th/9412188) the thermal correction to the thermal
decay or pair production rate for a system placed in a heat bath in the
presence of an external electric field, is always nonzero in the finite as well
as infinite time limit. Using the formalism outlined there, we reestimate the
decay rate for different values of temperature, mass and time.We also try to
identify the parameter ranges where the quantity of interest agrees with that
computed previously, at high temperature (in the infinite time limit), from the
imaginary part of the effective action using imaginary time and real time
formalism of thermal field theory. We also point out that in the strictly
infinite time limit, the correct decay rate as obtained from the work of Hallin
et. al. tends to diverge.
