James Khong

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the informed-consent and standard-of-care principles in clinical-negligence claims and the assessment of medical-expense damages, alongside the derivative-action requirements under section 347 of the Companies Act 2016.

James Khong appears in the corpus as counsel in medical-negligence, corporate and probate litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan).

A substantial matter concerns medical negligence. Acting for the respondent, the firm appeared in an appeal arising from a claim of negligence in which a treating team had departed from a multidisciplinary tumour board's recommendation, choosing radiofrequency ablation over cryoablation, giving rise to a full-thickness burn and prolonged treatment. The court examined the duty of care and informed consent, the failure to disclose material risks and the standard of care in treatment and aftercare under the Bolam test, and, on damages, the assessment of general damages for pain and suffering by reference to Yang Salbiah, the reasonableness of private medical expenses under the two-stage test in Chai Yee Chong v Lew Thai, novus actus interveniens, and aggravated damages.

In corporate work the firm acted for the defendant in a strike-out application concerning a counterclaim alleging misappropriation and beneficial ownership, where the court applied the proper-plaintiff rule in Foss v Harbottle, the reflective-loss principle, and the requirement to comply with the statutory derivative-action procedure under section 347 of the Companies Act 2016, the counterclaim plaintiff being neither a registered nor a beneficial shareholder.

The firm also appeared, acting for the defendant, in a contentious probate matter concerning the validity of several wills, where the plaintiffs sought a declaration that the wills were null and void for want of due execution, a lack of testamentary capacity and suspicious circumstances, and applied for an unusual order that the defendants open and close their cases before the plaintiffs called their witnesses. The firm's record is a litigation practice engaging clinical negligence, corporate standing and the proof of wills. What links these otherwise distinct fields is a recurring concern with who bears the burden of proof and how it is discharged, whether a patient must establish a departure from accepted practice and its causal consequences, a claimant must show standing before a derivative claim may proceed, or the propounder of a will must dispel suspicious circumstances, so that the allocation and discharge of the evidential burden is characteristically the pivot on which the firm's matters turn.