Lim Lip Hua v Seah Construction Pte Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judgment Date: 20 March 1992
• Date: 20 March 1992
• Docket Number: District Court Appeal No 76 of
• Court: High Court (Singapore)

Lim Lip Hua

Plaintiff

and

Seah Construction Pte Ltd

Defendant

[1992] SGHC 69

Yong Pung How CJ

District Court Appeal No 76 of 1991

High Court

Civil Procedure–Injunctions–Mandatory injunction–Mandatory injunction to restore demolished toilet–Application for discharge–Whether order clear enough such that no further details required to carry it out

The appellant was the tenant of the premises. The respondent was a property developer and the new owner of the land on which the premises stood. The appellant alleged that the respondent had hindered and interrupted his tenancy and he issued a writ against it claiming: (a) an injunction to restrain the respondent from interfering with his quiet enjoyment of the premises, and in any way breaking, pulling down or demolishing the premises until the trial of the action or until further order; and (b) an order that the respondent does reinstate the toilet at the premises by constructing a toilet for his use at the same site as the toilet that was demolished by the respondent. The appellant obtained interim orders in these terms. Subsequently, the respondent applied for the interim orders to be discharged. The district judge ordered that the interim order restraining the respondent from interfering with the appellant's quiet enjoyment of the premises be continued, but discharged the order for the reinstatement of the toilet because the respondent had not been informed as to what exactly it had to do. The appellant appealed against the discharge of this order. The issue was whether the order was sufficiently clear so as to require no further details for its implementation.

Held, allowing the appeal:

(1) The order was to “reinstate” a toilet, ie to install a toilet with reference to the toilet that once used to be there. The respondent had destroyed the toilet and therefore would have known what sort of toilet it was, and the order should have been clear enough to it in the circumstances. The respondent was a construction company, and should have had no difficulty in complying with what to it must have been a simple order. Furthermore, no real difficulty should have existed in ascertaining whether the order had been complied with or not: at [11] and [12].

(2) From the respondent's contention that it had complied with the order by having given instructions to its contractors to build a toilet, it could be inferred that it accepted that a toilet should have been built. Instead, a mere shed was built which the respondent claimed to be the toilet required under the order. It then sought to turn around from asserting compliance with the order to asserting that the toilet should not be built at all. The proper course would have been to ask for further particulars or variation of the order if it was really in doubt: at [13].

Fishenden v Higgs & Hill Ltd (1935) 153 LT 128 (refd)

Kennard v Cory Bros & Co [1922] 1 Ch 265 (folld)

Morris v Redland Bricks Ltd [1970]...