Naicker & Associates

On the court record

Naicker & Associates is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) are strongly concentrated in personal-injury, motor-accident and insurance litigation, together with the civil procedure that surrounds it. The firm has appeared in an appeal engaging the enforcement of a judgment against an insurer under section 96(3) of the Road Transport Act 1987, and whether a declaratory order complied with that provision or had to be set aside or impeached by a collateral action. It has argued for a preservation order and a stay of execution of a judgment sum pending appeal in a motorcycle-accident case, testing whether special circumstances existed to justify such relief.

A recurring subject is the dependency claim following a fatal accident. The firm has litigated claims for loss of dependency under section 7 of the Civil Law Act 1956, including the strict three-year limitation for bringing such a claim measured from the date of death, and estate claims under section 8, and it has appeared in appeals on liability and cross-appeals on quantum where the court weighed corroboration, inferences from physical evidence, the consistency of the plaintiff's account and contributory negligence. It has also argued the reception of fresh evidence on appeal under Order 55 Rule 7 of the Rules of Court 2012.

The firm's practice thus centres on the compensation of accident victims and their dependants and the procedural and evidential questions that determine such claims, from the limitation periods that govern dependency actions to the standards for appellate interference with findings on liability and quantum. In the fresh-evidence application the firm engaged the settled principles governing the reception of new evidence at the appellate stage, and the consolidation of appeals on liability and quantum where a single accident had generated overlapping claims. The reported profile is that of a litigation practice with distinct depth in road-accident, personal-injury and insurance law before the trial and appellate courts.