WONG JIN JING v PUAN SRI DATIN ONG KAI WOY (Pentadbir Harta Pesaka Tan Sri Dato' Lim Bah menurut Perintah Surat Kuasa Mentadbir bertarikh 11-02-2022)

Case Significance

A claim on 27 friendly loans against a deceased's estate struck out as time-barred under the six-year contractual limitation in section 6 of the Limitation Act 1953.

This High Court decision concerns an application to strike out a claim on the ground that it was time-barred, in an action brought against a deceased person's estate to recover money lent under friendly loans. The plaintiff had pleaded that a total of 27 friendly loans were advanced to the deceased at various times, the earliest on 18 January 2015 and the last on 24 May 2019, and sued the administrator of the deceased's estate to recover them. The estate applied to strike out the statement of claim under Order 18 rule 19, invoking the limitation defence, the proceedings against the estate being framed under Order 15 rule 6A(1) of the Rules of Court 2012.

The central issue was whether the plaintiff's claim was barred by section 6 of the Limitation Act 1953, which fixes a six-year limitation period for actions founded on contract, a friendly loan being contractual in nature. Time ordinarily runs from the date the cause of action accrues — for a loan repayable on demand or at a given time, from when repayment falls due — so that loans advanced years before the writ may fall outside the six-year window. The Court considered the interaction of section 6 with sections 19, 23 and 24 of the Act, which can affect the running of time through, for example, an acknowledgment or part payment of the debt that starts time afresh, and examined whether anything in the plaintiff's case brought the earlier loans back within the limitation period.

The Court concluded that the limitation defence was well founded and struck out the claim, awarding the defendant costs of RM5,000 for the application and RM3,000 for the main suit. The judgment is a useful illustration of how the six-year contractual limitation period under section 6 of the Limitation Act 1953 applies to friendly loans, the role of acknowledgment or part payment under sections 19, 23 and 24 in extending time, and the use of a strike-out to dispose of a claim that is plainly time-barred.