1. ) MAZLAN BIN CHIK 2. ) MOHD AZRANI BIN ABD RAHIM 3. ) FARID KHAN BIN KHAN MOHAMAD 4. ) NASAR KHAN BIN SEPOR RAHMAN 5. ) MOHAMED ZARSHAD BIN SEPOR RAHMAN 6. ) MOHD TAMAM BIN IDRIS 7. ) NOR ZAIDI BIN ABU SHARI 8. ) ROHANA BINTI AHMAD 9. ) FATIMAH BINTI HUSIN 10. ) SALMAH BINTI NOORDIN 11. ) MARIAM BINTI AHMAD 12. ) ZUBAIDAH BINTI RAAKZI 13. ) SAFIAH BINTI AHMAD 14. ) ZARIN BINTI ABDUL KARIM 15. ) DZAR DZAN BINTI MOHAMMED TAHIB v DATUK BANDAR KUALA LUMPUR

Case Significance

Illustrates the appellate court's restraint in disturbing a trial court's findings on a claimed settlement agreement, and the operation of res judicata where market traders pursue a fresh compensation claim after earlier proceedings arising from the same market redevelopment.

This High Court decision concerns an appeal by a group of market traders against the dismissal of their claim for compensation arising from the redevelopment of the market where they had traded, and the application of res judicata. The appellants had all been traders at a public market owned and managed by the local authority. When the authority decided to demolish and rebuild the market as part of an apartment complex, it graded the traders, many of whom had traded there for decades, according to their category of trading activity and offered compensation on that basis, following a survey conducted by an action committee. Dissatisfied, the appellants brought a claim in the Sessions Court, framed on a settlement agreement said to have been concluded at a meeting in June 2018, seeking a quantified sum representing their loss of income. The Sessions Court dismissed the claim after a full trial, and the appellants appealed. On appeal, the questions were whether the Sessions Court judge had erred in finding that the pleadings disclosed no agreement binding the authority arising from the June 2018 meeting, in her treatment of that meeting and its minutes, and in holding that the appellants' claims were barred by res judicata by reason of an earlier judicial-review application. The court examined the differences between the earlier judicial-review proceedings and the present suit, including that the settlement agreement was said to rest on facts occurring after the judicial-review application was filed and amounted to a new cause of action, and that the reliefs and the quantified damages differed. Finding no appealable error in the Sessions Court's conclusions, including its treatment of the meeting and the res judicata point, the court dismissed the appeal with costs. The judgment is a useful illustration of the appellate court's restraint where a trial court has made findings of fact on a claimed settlement agreement, and of the operation of res judicata in relation to earlier proceedings arising from the same redevelopment.