1. ) PENGARAH/JURUTERA DAERAH JABATAN KERJA RAYA NEGERI SEMBILAN 2. ) Jabatan Kerja Raya Seremban 3. ) Kerajaan Malaysia v 1. ) IQMAL IZZUDDEEN BIN MOHD ROSTHY 2. ) YANG DIPERTUA MAJLIS PERBANDARAN SEREMBAN 3. ) MAJLIS PERBANDARAN SEREMBAN 4. ) PENGURUS KAWASAN DAN SELIA SELENGGARA SELATAN SDN BHD 5. ) SELIA SELENGGARA SDN BHD

Case Significance

Illustrates liability for a falling roadside tree analysed through statutory maintenance duties and the act-of-God defence, and reaffirms appellate deference to concurrent findings that the tree was rotten and inadequately maintained.

This Court of Appeal decision concerns the liability of public authorities and a maintenance concessionaire for personal injury caused when a roadside tree fell onto a motorcyclist waiting at a traffic-light junction. The injured motorcyclist had sued the road and local authorities and the maintenance companies, alleging negligence and breach of the statutory duty to supervise and maintain the roadside and the trees planted on reserve land alongside a federal road. The appellants before the Court of Appeal were the district engineer and public works department and the Government, appealing against the finding of liability; a related appeal concerned the maintenance concessionaire companies. Because the injured claimant is a natural person named only as a party, this analysis refers to that party by role, while the authorities and companies are identified by their institutional names.

The competing arguments engaged the allocation of responsibility for maintaining trees on road reserve land — as between the highway authority, the local council (whose duties are informed by section 101 of the Local Government Act 1976), and the appointed maintenance concessionaire — and the defence that the falling tree was an unforeseeable act of God. On the facts, the trial court found that the tree had fallen because it was top heavy and its trunk was old, brittle, dry and rotten, a condition that pointed away from a sudden natural calamity and towards a failure of inspection and maintenance. That finding of fact was affirmed by the High Court on first appeal.

The Court of Appeal applied the settled principle that an appellate court will not disturb concurrent findings of fact by the courts below absent strong grounds for doing so. Finding no such grounds, it accepted the concurrent finding that the tree was rotten and its fall attributable to inadequate maintenance rather than an act of God. The judgment is a useful illustration of how liability for a falling roadside tree is analysed through statutory maintenance duties and the act-of-God defence, and of the deference appellate courts pay to concurrent findings of fact on the condition of the tree.