Isharidah, Ho, Chong & Menon

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the evidential burden of proving loss in insurance claims, the limits of an investigating officer's opinion on negligence, and the court's inherent discretion over the taxation of bills under the Legal Profession Act 1976.

Isharidah, Ho, Chong & Menon appears in the corpus as counsel in insurance, tort and costs litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), including in its appellate capacity over the Sessions Court.

A recurring strand of the firm's work is motor and fire insurance. Acting for the respondent in an appeal from the Sessions Court, the firm appeared in a road-accident claim where the court addressed the standard of appellate review, causation and novus actus interveniens, the admissibility and independence of expert evidence, the effect of delay in reporting to the police, and the principle that an investigating officer's opinion on negligence cannot replace the court's role as the legal fact-finder. In a fire-insurance matter, acting for the defendant insurer against Classic Palm Oil Mill Sdn Bhd, the firm appeared where the court considered a claim for consequential loss and emphasised that a plaintiff bringing an action for damages bears the burden of proving both that it suffered the loss and the quantum claimed, invoking the adverse-inference provision in section 114(g) of the Evidence Act 1950.

The firm also appeared in costs litigation, including a taxation dispute concerning whether invoices annexed to an originating summons were gross-sum bills, whether a party was out of time to seek taxation under the Legal Profession Act 1976, and whether the court retained an inherent discretion to order taxation notwithstanding a time bar under sub-section 121(2).

The firm's record is an insurance-and-litigation practice engaging the appellate review of Sessions Court findings, the evidential burden of proving loss, and the specialist rules governing the taxation of solicitors' bills, and it reflects a chambers regularly instructed on the defence side of insurance claims. Much of the firm's advocacy is concerned with the boundary between the trial court's fact-finding and the appellate court's power to intervene, and with holding a claimant to the strict burden of proving both liability and the quantum of the loss it asserts, questions that recur across motor, fire and consequential-loss claims alike.