Othman Hashim & Co

On the court record

Othman Hashim & Co appears in the reported judgments as a personal-injury and insurance litigation practice, with its work sitting entirely in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and turning overwhelmingly on kemalangan jalan raya (road traffic accidents). A large share of its matters are appeals and trials on the assessment of damages: general damages for catastrophic injury such as spinal-cord injury and tetraplegia measured against the Compendium ranges, loss of earnings with the mandatory deduction of living expenses under section 28A of the Civil Law Act 1956, the multiplier-multiplicand method for future care, future care costs weighed between home and institutional care against statistical life-expectancy evidence, and fatal-accident claims for loss of dependency brought under sections 7 and 8 of the Civil Law Act 1956. Recurring refinements include the deduction of interim payments, the rule that pre-judgment interest does not run on future damages, and the drawing of an adverse inference under section 114(g) of the Evidence Act 1950 where a party fails to produce evidence of loss of earnings. Liability disputes recur in the form of sumbang cuai (contributory negligence) and apportionment — for example an 80:20 split adjusted on appeal — and the circumstances in which an appellate court may disturb a trial judge's findings on liability. The firm also appears in insurance-coverage litigation, including a construction all-risks policy dispute over whether compliance with material-storage and flood-safety warranties was a condition precedent to the insurer's liability, and applications to declare a motor policy void and unenforceable. Its counterparties are predominantly insurers — Allianz General Insurance Company (Malaysia) Berhad, AmGeneral Insurance Berhad and Etiqa General Takaful Berhad among them — which places the firm squarely in the motor, personal-injury and insurance field. The reported matters together portray a specialist quantum and liability practice rather than a general commercial one.