TENG WAI KEAT v Pang Jing Yuan

Case Significance

Shows appellate deference to a trial judge’s assessment of damages where the award turns on a choice between competing expert reports, absent a plainly wrong finding.

This High Court decision, sitting on appeal from the Sessions Court at Temerloh, concerns a road-accident damages claim in which liability was not in dispute. The trial court had found the defendant wholly liable, at "100% bertanggungan" (100% responsible), and neither side challenged that finding. The appeal and the respondent’s cross-appeal were confined to quantum — described in the judgment as a "rayuan terhadap kuantum sahaja" (an appeal on quantum only). The dispute centred on the cost of a prosthesis for an injured claimant, who was recorded as being 17 years old at the time of the accident. A point taken below was whether the claimant would need to rely on a prosthesis for life or whether the surgery proposed could assist the injured limb instead. The defendant’s prosthetist had put the cost of the prosthesis at RM184,000 without surgery, while the claimant’s expert, relying on an orthosis report, put the figure at RM449,500, and the Sessions Court judge had accepted the lower sum as reasonable. The appellant argued that the trial judge had erred in the assessment, and the respondent cross-appealed that the higher expert report should have been preferred. The High Court declined to interfere. It reasoned that where a trial judge is faced with two competing expert reports, the choice of which to accept is an exercise of judicial discretion and appreciation of the evidence, and an appellate court should defer to that assessment unless it is plainly wrong. Drawing on appellate authority on the treatment of conflicting expert evidence, the Court held that a trial judge’s preference for one expert over another, supported by the evidence, is not a "kesilapan yang ketara" (an obvious or manifest error) warranting appellate intervention. Accordingly the Court found no basis to disturb the assessment and, as recorded in the catchwords, the "rayuan dan rayuan silang ditolak" (the appeal and cross-appeal were dismissed), and the Sessions Court decision was affirmed. The judgment illustrates the deference an appellate court gives to a trial judge’s assessment of damages founded on competing expert opinion.