MOHD JAMEL BIN ABDUL RAHMAN v BAKER HUGHES (M) SDN. BHD.

Case Significance

Illustrates the striking-out jurisdiction where a plaintiff sues a party with whom he has no privity of contract and is not an employee, and confirms that a claim for unfair dismissal belongs in the Industrial Court under the statutory representation machinery rather than in a civil suit.

This High Court decision concerns the striking out of a claim for unfair dismissal brought by an individual against a company with which he had no contract of employment, and the burden on a plaintiff to show that a pleaded claim is not obviously unsustainable. The court explained that, once a defendant files a striking-out application and adduces evidence in its affidavit to prove that the plaintiff's claim is unsustainable, the onus shifts to the plaintiff to adduce evidence in reply showing that the pleaded claim is not obviously unsustainable and therefore deserves a full trial. On the undisputed facts, the plaintiff was a director of a company that had contracted, through a chain of manpower arrangements under a master services agreement, to supply his services as a drilling supervisor to the defendant. The defendant never made any payment to the plaintiff; it paid the manpower company, which in turn engaged the plaintiff's company. The court held that there was no privity of contract between the plaintiff and the defendant and that the plaintiff was not an employee of the defendant, so that he had no contractual or employment relationship on which to found a claim against it. It further held that, in any event, a claim for unfair or unjust dismissal is one that must be pursued in the Industrial Court under the statutory machinery for representations against dismissal, and not by a civil suit in the High Court. Concluding that the plaintiff's claim was plain and obviously unsustainable, the court allowed the defendant's application and struck out the writ and statement of claim. The judgment is a useful illustration of the striking-out jurisdiction where a plaintiff sues a party with whom he has no privity of contract, and of the principle that unfair-dismissal claims belong in the Industrial Court.