OIB PROPERTIES (C) SDN BHD v Persatuan Penduduk Taman Myra Meranti, Puchong, Selangor (disaman melalui pengerusinya BALARAMA KRSHNA A/L RAMALOO

Case Significance

Illustrates the personal character of a private nuisance claim and the locus-standi limits on a residents' association: a registered society cannot sue in nuisance on behalf of its members without suing in a representative capacity for identified aggrieved residents and proving actual loss of enjoyment.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns a claim in private nuisance arising from a housing development. The plaintiff, the developer of a residential scheme, sued the residents' association for the first two phases after the association denied the developer's contractors entry to the access roads to carry out horizontal directional drilling works — laying pipes as a prelude to cabling works to connect electricity supply from a Tenaga Nasional Berhad substation to newly completed shophouses. The access roads had not yet been surrendered to the local council pending completion of a later phase. The developer alleged that the denial of entry interfered with its right to use the land and amounted to an actionable nuisance, while the residents' association counterclaimed. Two issues were central: whether the association, sued as a registered society, had the locus standi or capacity to sue in nuisance, and whether any nuisance was made out on the evidence. The court held that the residents' association, being a registered society and an entity separate from the residents, and not having sued in a representative capacity on behalf of identified aggrieved residents, had no locus standi to sue in nuisance, since a claim in nuisance is personal to those whose enjoyment of land is affected. It further held that, even if the association had standing, the counterclaim could not stand because no credible evidence of any loss of enjoyment had been furnished — no resident was called to testify, and there was no evidence of air or noise pollution or unreasonable obstruction from the drilling works. The court awarded RM30,000 to the plaintiff. Delivered by Judicial Commissioner Elaine Yap Chin Gaik, the judgment is a useful illustration of the personal character of a nuisance claim and the locus-standi limits on a residents' association suing on behalf of its members.