FAISAL @ AHMAD FAISAL BIN HUSSAIN v Ahmad Fikri Bin Hussein (Selaku Pentadbir Harta Pusaka Simati, Hussein Bin Yaacob)

Case Significance

Illustrates that a comprehensive consent judgment settling disputes over a deceased estate renders subsequent claims on the same subject matter res judicata, so that a fresh action seeking to reopen those matters may be struck out under Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012.

This High Court decision concerns an application to strike out an originating summons over the administration of a deceased estate on the ground that the matters had already been settled by a consent judgment. The plaintiff and the defendant are siblings and among the heirs of their late father, who died leaving six heirs; the defendant is the administrator of the father's estate. The plaintiff filed an originating summons seeking a declaration that the defendant, as administrator, take the necessary steps to register the transfer of the estate's land to the heirs in accordance with the distribution certificate, and, failing that, for the defendant to be removed as administrator and the plaintiff appointed in his place. The defendant applied under Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012 to strike out the originating summons and, further, to have the plaintiff declared a vexatious litigant. The court examined a consent judgment recorded in earlier proceedings, in which an earlier claim by the plaintiff against the defendant concerning the estate had been settled. It held that the consent judgment was plainly intended to resolve all disputes and covered any action connected with the late father's estate by both parties, so that the issues between them had become res judicata. The court noted that the earlier claim had itself been resolved on terms said to have settled the plaintiff's share of the proceeds of the estate lands, so that the present attempt to compel registration of the transfers, or to remove the administrator, revisited ground the parties had already put to rest. On that basis the court allowed the striking-out limb of the application and struck out the plaintiff's originating summons with costs, granting only that relief and, on the material before it, stopping short of the further order sought that the plaintiff be declared a vexatious litigant. The judgment is a useful illustration of the effect of a comprehensive consent judgment in rendering subsequent claims on the same subject matter res judicata, and of the striking out of a fresh action that seeks to reopen matters already settled between the parties.