Low Yoke Ying and Another v Sim Kok Lee and Others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Yong Pung How CJ
• Judgment Date: 17 December 1990
• Neutral Citation: [1990] SGHC 111
• Docket Number: Suit No 4373 of 1983
• Date: 17 December 1990
• Year: 1990
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Plaintiff Counsel: Karuppan Chettiar and Dr Myint Soe (Murphy & Dunbar)
• Citation: [1990] SGHC 111
• Defendant Counsel: TS Tan (TS Tan),Yeo Kee Chin (Yeo Kee Chin & Co)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Claim for loss arising out of benefit of pension, gratuity and CPF,Principles applicable,Damages,ss 8, 9, 12(4) & 14(1) Civil Law Act (Cap 30, 1970 Ed),Causation,Whether accident resulted from negligence of lorry driver or negligent repair work by repairers,Death,Liability for damages,Collision between lorry and motor car,Tort,Measure of damages,Fatal accident,Negligence,Award to estate for lost years taking account of promotion

Cur Adv Vult

On 17 March 1981 at about 2.45pm Chan Kong Hwa alias A Wa (the deceased) was driving his motor car on his side of Tampines Road, when a lorry veered on to his road and collided with his motor car. At 3.45pm on the same day he died from the injuries which he received. The lorry was owned by the third defendants, Eng Bee & Co Pte Ltd, and was driven at the time by the first defendant, Sim Kok Lee, in the course of his employment with the third defendants. The second defendants, Boon Yam & Co, were motor repairers who were the regular repairers for the third defendants` vehicles and had also attended to the lorry in question. This action under the Civil Law Act (Cap 30, 1970 Ed) was brought by the plaintiffs as the administratrix and co-administrator of the deceased ` s estate for the benefit of the estate and his dependants.

Liability

At the trial, six witnesses gave evidence for the plaintiffs, and a total of seven witnesses for the defendants. In his defence, the first defendant (DW2) said that he had been employed by the third defendants as a lorry attendant since 1973. In January 1980 he had become a lorry driver and had been assigned to drive this lorry. After the accident, he had ceased to be a driver, and was now a storekeeper. On Saturday 14 March 1981, some three days before the accident, he said that he found the steering of his lorry to be very heavy and reported the matter to his supervisor, Tay Kim Beng (DW5). He was instructed to send the lorry to the second defendants for the necessary repairs. He had had many occasions in the past to take the lorry to them for various purposes and, up to that date, had done so on more than ten occasions. At the second defendants` premises, he explained the problem to one Ah Yam and left the lorry there for the problem to be attended to.

On Monday 16 March 1981 at about 5pm he took back the lorry after being told by Ah Yam that the problem had been attended to. As this was already in the late afternoon, he drove the lorry to his home and parked it overnight in an HDB car park. On the following day, the lorry was driven by him for a considerable distance: first, he drove it to his employer` s store in Geylang and carried a load of building materials from the store to a customer in King George` s Avenue near the employer ` s office; from there he drove it to the office to collect a delivery order for a second load; then he drove it again to the store, collected the load, and delivered it to a customer in Woodlands; finally, he drove the lorry back, this time unladen, towards the store, in the course of which the accident took place. He confirmed a statement which he had made at the earlier in the coroner`s court, that he was on the road for about five hours that day and covered a total distance of about 80km before the accident.

The first defendant`s evidence on the cause of the accident was in effect that the steering failed suddenly. Just before this happened, he was driving normally along a two-way stretch of road, on his own side of the road, and at a speed of no more th an 20 to 30 km/h, because there were speed regulating strips on the road surface. He recalled that he felt the road surface to be uneven as he drove over the strips, but in spite of this the lorry was moving normally. After he had passed the strips and was some five lorry-lengths beyond them, the lorry suddenly went out of control. He said that he shouted to his lorry attendant that the steering was not working. He jammed on his brakes. He was still on his own side of the road, but the lorry went over to the other side and collided with an oncoming motor car driven by the deceased.

After the collision, he got down from his lorry. He went to a telephone kiosk and made three telephone calls: for an ambulance; to his supervisor, Tay Kim Beng, to inform him of the accident; and to Ah Yam when he asked Ah Yam why the steering had failed. According to him, Ah Yam said he would go to the scene and have a look. The accident happened at about 2.45pm. He said that he was away from the scene to make his telephone calls for about ten minutes and got back to the scene at about 2.55pm or 3pm. A police officer, not the Inspector whom he saw later, was there. He did not remove anything from the lorry, and did not see anyone else remove anything. According to him, there were no tools in the lorry, apart from a screw-driver.

The lorry attendant, Lim Kow Nee (DW3), was not particularly helpful as a witness. While he substantially corroborated the first defendant` s evidence in respect of the delivery of goods to customers on that day, he was confused about the circumstances at the time of the collision. Of particular interest, he said that at the time of the collision he heard the first defendant say, ` Die, no steering` . Under cross-examination, he was not sure whether these words were said before or after the collision, although he had said at the earlier inquiry that he heard this said a few moments before the collision.

Inspector Roger Yeo Kong (PW4), an officer attached to the Traffic Police in March 1981, arrived at the scene of the accident at 4.38pm on 17 March 1981. He said in evidence at the inquiry on 31 July 1981 that he found, among other things, that the steering drag link of the lorry was disconnected from the drop arm, and t he nut securing the two parts together was missing. The lorry was sent at 5.30pm on the same day to the Force Transport Branch, where it was placed in a fenced and guarded compound. It was examined there on 21 March 1981 by Foo Yin Fatt (PW3), an engineer attached to the Force Transport Branch of the Singapore Police Force. Following his examination he reported that the speedometer, the handbrake and the footbrakes were in order, and the tyres were in serviceable condition; but he also reported that the drag link and the drop arm, both of which were component parts of the steering system of the lorry, were disconnected. The disconnection, in his opinion, made it impossible to steer the lorry.

Tong Teck Tiong (DW1), a director of the third defendants, told the court that his company had dealt in building materials since 1964. To deliver them to customers, the company had its own fleet of lorries. In 1981 there were six lorries in the fleet. The company did not have a service department of its own, however, and for some ten years before the accident had been sending its vehicles to the second defendants for servicing and for repairs. This included preparing the company` s lorries for the periodical examinations by officers of the Registry of Vehicles. The company had been happy with the services provided by the second defendants and had no complaints. Even after the accident and up to the date of the trial, the company` s standing instructions were still to send all the lorries to the second defendants. The second defendants billed the company each time for work done. They sent an invoice for $91 for repairs done on 16 March 1981 to the lorry in question before the accident. This invoice had been paid in cash and had then been entered in the cash book of the company.

Cheng Kuang Bong, (DW6), a motor mechanic who in 1981 was also one of the two partners of the second defendants, Boon Yam & Co, who are sued as a firm in this action, gave evidence. (He appeared to be the same person who was referred to by the first defendant at various times in his evidence as Ah Boon and as Ah Yam.) He said in his evidence that the lorry was sent to them for repairs at about 4pm on Saturday 14 March 1981, at which time the first defendant complained that the steering was stiff. This being late in the afternoon on a Saturday, he told the first defendant to leave the lorry with him and to come back for it after the weekend on the following Monday, 16 March 1981. On the Monday morning, he did repair work on the lorry for some two hours, during which the steering system was repaired. He found that there was no oil in it which was the cause of the stiffness in the steering. Under cross-examination he confirmed that the shortage of oil was something which would only take five or ten minutes to remedy. He claimed that he also changed the drag link. This involved disconnecting the drag link from the drop arm so as to fit on the new drag link. To do the reconnection he used a special ` nyloc` nut which could not come loose. He did not use a split pin because there was no provision for a split pin in the new drag link which he used. After the repairs, the lorry was jacked up. He manoeuvred the steering to assure himself that it was now in order, but he did not test-drive the lorry. Later that day, at about 5pm the first defendant came to the workshop and took back the lorry.

Cheng Kuang Bong said that it was Tay Kim Beng (DW5), the supervisor, who telephoned him between 2.35pm and 2.45pm on 17 March 1981 and told him about the accident. Tay Kim Beng told him to go to the scene and take a look. He got there about 10 to 15 minutes after receiving the call, before the police arrived. The first defendant was also not there, and only came back to the scene some time later. When he examined the lorry after he arrived at the scene, he found that the drag link and the drop arm were disconnected. He did not see the nut which he had fitted on, and he was unable to account for its absence. He agreed that it was not his practice to go to the scene of an accident; he went on this occasion only because Tay Kim Beng had asked him to go, and as the steering had been repaired by him and the driver had complained that the steering had failed at the time of the accident. He said that, when he examined the lorry at the scene of the accident, he did not disconnect the drag link and the drop arm.

Denis Packard (DW7), a qualified automotive mechanical engineer, was called by the first and third defendants as an expert witness to support the evidence of the first defendant. He had previously submitted a...