TEH KEAN HOOI v 1. ) SIANG HENG PLASTIC WARE SDN BHD 2. ) TEOH BOON THONG

pa-12b-21-09-2021 High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) 23 June 2025 • PA-12B-21-09/2021 • 32 min read
30 cases cited (0 SG, 30 foreign)

Outcome

As for quantum, I allow P’s appeal to the extent that I vary the following quantum of damages awarded on a 100% liability— (1) Head injury: RM180k (2) Facial fractures: RM60k.

Quoted verbatim from the judgment of High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) (pa-12b-21-09-2021). Read the full judgment on the official Malaysia Courts portal for the complete decision.

Catchwords

5. It is vital, in this post-trial Appeal, to review the law on appellate intervention. An appellate court should only interfere to disturb the findings of the first-instance court (here: the Sessions Court), if the Sessions Court was “plainly wrong”. 6. Our Federal Court, in Ng Hoo Kui & Anor v Wendy Tan Lee Peng (administratrix for the estate of Tan Ewe Kwang, deceased) & Ors [2020] 12 MLJ 67 (FC); [2020] 8 AMR 227; [2020] 10 CLJ 1; [2020] 6 MLRA 193, comprehensively expounded the genesis of the “plainly wrong” principle, through its development over the years, into its current meaning. 7. Ng Hoo Kui (supra) propounded that the primary “plainly wrong” principle includes the following not-exhaustive elaborative tenets, and I apply them here— (1) The Sessions Court’s judgment is “plainly wrong” if it was arrived at through “no or insufficient judicial appreciation of the evidence”: citing UEM Group Bhd (previously known as United Engineers (M) Bhd v Genisys Integrated Engineers Pte Ltd & Anor [2011] 1 AMCR 338 (FC); [2010] 9 CLJ 785; [2010] 2 MLRA 668; [2010] MLJU 2179. (2) This phrase of the “lack of judicial appreciation of the evidence” encompasses these three errors— (i) critical factual finding which has no basis in evidence (that is, findings not based on the evidence); (ii) demonstrable misunderstanding of the relevant evidence (that is, misunderstanding the evidence); (iii) demonstrable failure to consider the relevant evidence (that is, failure to consider the evidence). (3) The Sessions Court’s judgment is “plainly wrong” if it was arrived at through a “material error of law”: following Henderson v Foxworth Investments Ltd [2014] 1 WLR 2600 (UKSC). (4) The Sessions Court’s decision is “plainly wrong” if it “could not reasonably be explained or justified”, making it a decision “which no reasonable judge could have reached”: citing Tengku Dato’ Ibrahim Petra bin Tengku Indra Petra v Petra Perdana Bhd & Anor Appeal [2018] 2 MLJ 177 (FC); [2018] 1 AMR 517; [2018] 2 CLJ 641; [2018] 1 MLRA 263. (5) An appellate court is to evaluate whether the Sessions Court’s decision was “reasonably made”: paragraph 77 of Ng Hoo Kui (supra). 8. The “plainly wrong” principle, however, is not intended to be used as a catch-all method to replace the Sessions Court’s decision with my own (the appellate court’s) decision, on the facts of the case. The Federal Court in Ng Hoo Kui (supra) puts it this way— [76] What is pertinent is that, the ‘plainly wrong’ test is not intended to be used by an appellate court as a mean to substitute its own decision for that of the trial court on the facts. [78] Hence following this court’s ruling in Tengku Dato’ Ibrahim Petra bin Tengku Indra Petra an appellate court should not interfere with the factual findings of a trial judge unless it was satisfied that the decision of the trial judge was ‘plainly wrong’ where in arriving at the decision it could not reasonably be explained or justified and so was one which no reasonable judge could have reached. If the decision did not fall within any of the aforesaid category, it is irrelevant, even if the appellate court thinks that with whatever degree of certainty, it considered that it would have reached a different conclusion from the trial judge.[emphasis added] 9. Put differently, even if an appellate court finds, on the evidence and the facts of a case, that the appellate court would have come to a different decision, the appellate court, when it is deciding on the appeal, should not bypass an analysis of the first-instance court’s reasoning. 10. I must consider the Sessions Court’s appreciation of the evidence and the Sessions Court’s application of the principles of law, in the context of these elaborative tenets, to see if the Sessions Court has committed a fundamental error. Summary of

Practice Areas

Tort Damages

Judges (1)

Kenneth Yoong Ken Chinson St James Delivered

Parties (3)

SIANG HENG PLASTIC WARE Sdn Bhd Respondent Teh Kean Hooi Appellant Teoh Boon Thong Respondent

Case Significance

Illustrates the application of the plainly-wrong test to a Sessions Court's apportionment of liability in a running-down action, with the appellate court leaving liability undisturbed while revising several heads of quantum.

This High Court decision, sitting in its appellate jurisdiction, concerns a post-trial appeal in a running-down action arising from a collision between a motorcycle and a car on a Penang highway. The plaintiff was the motorcycle rider; the second defendant was the car driver and the first defendant the company that owned the car. After trial the Sessions Court found the plaintiff and the car driver equally liable for the accident and awarded damages under a range of heads. The plaintiff appealed against the whole of the judgment, and the defendants cross-appealed against the finding on liability and against the quantum awarded on several heads of damage. The court reviewed the law on appellate intervention, emphasising that an appellate court should interfere with a first-instance court's findings only where the Sessions Court was "plainly wrong", a principle expounded by the Federal Court in Ng Hoo Kui, which includes the tenet that a judgment is plainly wrong if reached through no or insufficient judicial appreciation of the evidence. Applying that test, the court sustained the Sessions Court's finding on liability, leaving the equal apportionment undisturbed. On quantum, it allowed the plaintiff's appeal to the extent of varying several heads of damages assessed on a full-liability basis — including awards for head injury, facial fractures, dental loss, injury to both eyes, and actual and future loss of earnings — while declining to vary the Sessions Court's award of interest, and it structured interest at the conventional rates for general and special damages. The court maintained the scaled trial costs payable to the plaintiff and ordered the defendants to pay the plaintiff costs of RM12,000.00 for the appeal, subject to allocatur. The judgment illustrates the application of the plainly-wrong test to concurrent findings on liability and the appellate revision of quantum in a personal-injury appeal.

How did the court treat the Sessions Court's finding on liability?

Applying the plainly-wrong test from Ng Hoo Kui, it found no basis to interfere and sustained the Sessions Court's finding that the motorcycle rider and the car driver were equally liable.

What did the court do on quantum and costs?

It allowed the plaintiff's appeal to the extent of varying several heads of damages on a full-liability basis, left the interest award largely intact, maintained the scaled trial costs, and ordered the defendants to pay RM12,000.00 costs for the appeal.

Statutes Cited

Civil Law Act 1956
s 28A
Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012
s 4

Cases Cited (30)

UK (1)
[2014] 1 WLR 2600
MY (29)
[1983] 2 CLJ 198 [1983] 2 MLJ 324 [1997] 1 MLRH 76 [1997] 2 AMR 1996 [1999] 1 MLRH 489 [1999] 2 AMR 1884 [1999] 3 CLJ 188 [1999] MLJU 126 [2004] 4 CLJ 309 [2004] 6 AMR 781 [2005] 2 MLJ 1 [2010] 9 CLJ 785 [2010] MLJU 2179 [2018] 1 AMR 517 [2018] 2 CLJ 641 [2018] 2 MLJ 177 [2018] AMEJ 1016 [2018] AMEJ 1410 [2018] AMEJ 1511 [2018] MLJU 1167 [2019] 11 MLJ 220 [2019] 5 CLJ 196 [2019] AMEJ 0792 [2019] MLJU 720 [2020] 10 CLJ 1 [2020] 12 MLJ 67 [2020] 8 AMR 227 [2023] AMEJ 3081 [2023] MLJU 3386

Judgment

Read the full judgment on the official Malaysia Courts portal.

Read on eJudgment

Source: eJudgment (pa-12b-21-09-2021)