JEWEL VIEW SDN BHD v INDAH WATER KONSORTIUM SDN BHD

Case Significance

Illustrates the appellate court's deference to a trial court's findings of fact in a utility-charges recovery action: findings that the defendant was a registered user, that the service was connected and provided, and that the sum was owed will not be disturbed absent a demonstrated error of law or a plainly wrong assessment of the evidence.

This High Court decision at Kuala Lumpur is an appeal in a claim for unpaid sewerage-services charges. The respondent, the national sewerage-services company, had sued the appellant in the Sessions Court to recover an outstanding sum of RM323,588.48 as at 30 September 2021, and the Sessions Court had allowed the claim with interest at five per cent per annum from the date of judgment and costs. The appellant appealed. The appeal turned on three factual and legal questions, each framed as whether the Sessions Court Judge had erred in law or in fact: whether the appellant was a registered user of the respondent's services; whether the respondent had in fact provided connected sewerage services to the appellant's premises; and whether the respondent was entitled to claim the total outstanding amount. These questions went to the foundation of the liability to pay charges — a customer's registration as a user, the actual provision of a connected service to the premises, and the correctness of the sum claimed. Sitting in its appellate capacity, the High Court reviewed the record and the Sessions Court Judge's findings and conclusions on each ground and was satisfied that no appealable error had been shown. It accordingly dismissed the appeal with costs of RM7,000 subject to allocatur. Delivered by Aliza Sulaiman J, the judgment is a useful illustration of the appellate court's deference to a trial court's findings of fact in a utility-charges recovery action: where the trial court has found that the defendant was a registered user, that the service was connected and provided to the premises, and that the sum claimed was made out, an appellate court will not disturb those findings absent a demonstrated error of law or a plainly wrong assessment of the evidence. The decision reflects the ordinary division of function between a trial court that hears the evidence and finds the facts and an appellate court whose role is to correct error rather than to re-try the dispute, so that a recovery action for statutory service charges succeeds or fails on findings that the appellate court will approach with restraint.