MOHAMMAD ESA BIN NOIN(Berniaga sebagai Twenty Trees Services) v KOPERASI PERUMAHAN ANGKATAN TENTERA BERHAD

Case Significance

Illustrates the extended form of res judicata and the finality principle as a basis for summarily striking out a claim under Order 18 rule 19: a recorded consent judgment bars a later claim arising from the same narrative that could and should have been raised in the earlier suit.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns the striking out of a statement of claim on the ground of res judicata. The plaintiff was a tenant who had leased commercial premises from the defendant, an armed-forces housing cooperative registered under the Co-operative Societies Act 1993 and the registered owner of the premises, to operate a boutique hotel and lodging business under a tenancy agreement entered into in November 2021. The defendant applied under Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012 to strike out the plaintiff's statement of claim. The decisive feature was an earlier consent judgment recorded between the same parties, binding on its agreed terms, arising out of an earlier suit between them. The court held that the plaintiff's fresh claim arose from the same narrative that had been before the court in that earlier suit, and that the plaintiff's failure to raise the present claim when it could and should have been raised then meant that it was now barred by the principle of res judicata. Applying the rule that there must be finality in litigation — that where a matter could have been adjudicated in one suit but was not litigated, the parties cannot afterwards raise issues that ought to have been raised — the court found the defendant's striking-out application well founded and that the case was fit to be terminated summarily under Order 18 rule 19. It allowed the application and struck out the claim, with costs of RM5,000 subject to the allocatur fee. The plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeal, and this judgment sets out the reasons. Delivered by Noor Hayati binti Haji Mat J, the decision is a useful illustration of the extended form of res judicata and the finality principle as a basis for striking out a claim.