AZAHA BIN DERAMAN v Mohd Napi B Abdul Razak & Mohd Hanafi B Hasim

ta-12b-15-12-2024 High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) 25 November 2025 • TA-12B-15-12/2024 • 2 min read

Catchwords

Tort – Negligence – Road traffic accident – Motorcycle colliding with rear left side of car – Whether trial court erred in fixing 100% liability on motorcyclist – Failure of driver to signal before changing lane – Sudden lateral movement – Physical damage pattern corroborating plaintiff’s version – Investigating officer’s independent evidence – Sessions Court’s misdirection – Contributory negligence – Apportionment of liability – Whether 70:30 apportionment justified. Evidence – Physical evidence – Photographs and damage pattern – Consistency with plaintiff’s account – Contradiction of defendant’s police report – Weight to be accorded to independent investigating officer’s testimony – Failure of trial court to evaluate material evidence – Appellate intervention. Negligence – Standard of care – Failure to give advance signal before changing lane – Breach of basic road safety obligation – Dominant cause of collision – “Last opportunity” principle – Motorcyclist’s duty of heightened vigilance when riding on road shoulder – Contributory negligence. Damages – Personal injuries – Assessment – Facial fractures – Multiple distinct fractures – Whether global award permissible – Separate assessment required – Error of principle – Mechanical deduction for overlapping injuries – Requirement of functional analysis – Failure to consider neurosurgical injury – Proper assessment of general damages – Appellate reassessment. Damages – Overlapping injuries – Whether blanket percentage deduction permissible – Distinct anatomical injuries producing separate pain and disability – Improper mechanical approach – Principles governing overlapping injuries. Practice and Procedure – Appeal – Interference with findings of fact – Misdirection – Error of principle – Failure to evaluate material evidence – When appellate court entitled to intervene.

Practice Areas

Damages Tort Civil Procedure Evidence

Judges (1)

Yusrin Faidz bin Yusoff Delivered

Parties (2)

Azaha bin Deraman Appellant Mohd Napi B Abdul Razak & Mohd Hanafi B Hasim Respondent

Case Significance

A running-down appeal challenging a 100%-against-the-motorcyclist finding, where the driver's failure to signal, the damage pattern and independent evidence supported apportioning liability.

This High Court decision is an appeal in a road traffic accident claim founded on negligence, in which the principal question was the correct apportionment of liability between a motorcyclist and a car driver. The collision involved a motorcycle striking the rear left side of a car. The Sessions Court had fixed liability entirely on the motorcyclist, attributing the accident wholly to him, and the appeal challenged that finding as a misdirection.

The evidence pointed to a more shared responsibility than a 100% finding against the motorcyclist allowed. A central feature was the driver's failure to signal before changing lanes, followed by a sudden lateral movement of the car into the motorcycle's path. That mechanism was corroborated by objective evidence: the pattern of physical damage to the vehicles was consistent with the plaintiff's version of events rather than the defendant's, and the investigating officer's independent evidence supported the same account. Where the physical evidence and an independent investigator align with one party's account, an appellate court is entitled to conclude that the trial court misdirected itself in disregarding them.

The appeal therefore turned on whether the trial court's attribution of sole blame to the motorcyclist could stand, or whether the driver's own negligence in changing lanes without signalling required the liability to be shared through an apportionment for contributory negligence — the issue being framed as whether a 70:30 apportionment was justified on the evidence. It further shows that the burden remains on the party alleging negligence to establish the mechanism of the collision, and that an apportionment for contributory negligence is the court's tool for reflecting fault on both sides rather than assigning blame wholly to one. The judgment is a useful illustration of how an appellate court reviews a trial court's apportionment of liability in a running-down action, of the weight that physical damage patterns and independent investigating-officer evidence carry in reconstructing an accident, and of how a failure to signal before a lane change bears on the division of fault between driver and motorcyclist.

What was the central issue on this appeal?

The central issue was whether the Sessions Court had misdirected itself in fixing liability 100% on the motorcyclist for a collision with the rear left side of a car, or whether the driver's failure to signal before changing lanes required liability to be apportioned for contributory negligence.

What evidence bore on the apportionment?

The driver's failure to signal and sudden lateral movement, corroborated by a pattern of physical damage consistent with the plaintiff's version and by the investigating officer's independent evidence, supported sharing the blame — framed as whether a 70:30 apportionment was justified.

Judgment

Read the full judgment on the official Malaysia Courts portal.

Read on eJudgment

Source: eJudgment (ta-12b-15-12-2024)