Md Razzak Molla (administrator of the estate of Mamun Abdullah All, deceased) v Ramasamy Vesuvanathan and others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Tan May Tee
• Judgment Date: 31 August 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGDC 193
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Hearing Date: 15 September 2021,16 September 2021,20 September 2021,07 June 2021,10 June 2021,25 May 2021,21 January 2022
• Docket Number: District Court Suit No 901 of 2018
• Plaintiff Counsel: Liew Teck Huat and Rapinder Kaur (instructed counsel) with Chitra Balakrishnan (Regency Legal LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: Deepak Natverlal (Crown Juris Law LLC)
• Subject Matter: Tort,Negligence,Breach of duty,Evidence,Burden of proof
• Published date: 07 September 2022

District Judge Tan May Tee: Introduction

In the early hours of 3 April 2015, a fire broke out at the second storey of a private apartment building at 86A Lorong 6 Geylang, Singapore 399237 (“the Premises”). The Premises had been used as an improvised dormitory for migrant workers at the material time.

While the majority of the occupants managed to escape unscathed, two of the workers were found lying motionless in one of the rooms in the Premises and subsequently pronounced dead by personnel of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (“SCDF”). They were Bangladeshi nationals named Mamun Abdullah All (“the Deceased”) and Hosen Ali. Both were certified to have died from smoke inhalation as disclosed in the autopsy reports.

The plaintiff is the father and the administrator of the Deceased’s estate. He brings this claim on behalf of the estate as well as for himself and his wife, Jahanara Begum, being dependants of the Deceased. The Deceased was 20 years old at the time of his death and had been employed as a construction worker in Singapore from around January 2015¹.

Background

The first to the fourth defendants are the joint owners and landlords of the Premises². They had purchased the Premises in their joint names as an investment property in 2010³.

The second defendant was the late wife of the first defendant. She passed away on 30 November 2016 and the first defendant was appointed the sole administrator of her estate in March 2018⁴. The third and fourth defendants are also a husband and wife. They are related to the first couple by marriage – the son of the first and second defendants is married to the daughter of the third and fourth defendants⁵.

The duties in the management of the investment property were divided up among the four defendants. The financial aspects such as signing of the tenancy agreements, renewals and collection of rentals were handled by the first defendant. The third defendant was in charge of the maintenance and inspections⁶ of the Premises when required while the fourth defendant attended to the insurance matters⁷.

On 18 September 2014, a tenancy agreement for the Premises was signed by the first defendant as landlord with a company called HKH Construction Pte Ltd as tenant for the period from 5 October 2014 to 4 October 2015 (“Tenancy Agreement”). One Mr Ho Kien Heng had signed on behalf of the named tenant⁸.

The Tenancy Agreement provided for a combined rental of $5,600 per month for the Premises on an unfurnished basis⁹. As part of the tenant’s covenants, the Tenancy Agreement prohibited the tenant from assigning, subletting or parting with possession of the Premises or any part thereof. It was also stipulated in the Tenancy Agreement that the Premises shall not be occupied by more than eight persons¹⁰.

The investigations conducted by the police after the fire, however, revealed that Mr Ho Kien Heng had difficulties paying the contracted rental¹¹ and he had assigned the tenancy of the Premises to the fifth defendant, Neo Wee Seng, in December 2014¹².

The fifth defendant who was apparently the director of a company called Sim Hua Pte Ltd in turn rented the Premises to foreign workers who were introduced to him by his friend, one Jahir Raihan Billal Hossain aka Johid, a Bangladeshi national and a work permit holder. The fifth defendant had entrusted Johid to manage the Premises and collected a base rent of $7,000 per month from Johid. The fifth defendant had visited the Premises in February 2015 and was aware that the Premises had taken the form of an improvised dormitory with 12 rooms¹³. Johid had reportedly collected rentals of $250 to $300 each from the workers who resided at the improvised dormitory. It was noted in the Coroner’s Certificate that Johid had left Singapore for Bangladesh soon after the fire and could not be contacted¹⁴.

The sixth defendant is a construction company and was the named employer of the Deceased at the material time. The sixth defendant’s manager, one Thanapalan Vijayan, had arranged with Johid for the Deceased and four other workers employed by them to be housed at the Premises on or around 31 March 2015¹⁵.

While it appears from the record that the writ had been served on both the fifth and sixth defendants, neither of them entered an appearance. They did not participate in the proceedings and no default judgment has been entered against them to-date. The trial of the plaintiff’s action on the issue of liability thus proceeded against the first to the fourth defendants only. For convenience, they shall be referred to herein as “the Four Defendants”.

The cause of the fire

Investigations into the cause of the fire were conducted by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (“SCDF”) together with the Singapore Police Force and documented in a Fire Investigation Report dated 17 September 2015¹⁶.

Andy Choo Liew Kuan, the leader of the SCDF’s Fire Investigation team tasked to investigate the incident and who had approved the contents of the Fire Investigation Report, was subpoenaed as a witness for the plaintiff (“PW3”). The significant findings noted in the Fire Investigation Report were as follows: There were 12 partitioned rooms in the affected unit, ie the Premises, which were identified as Rooms 1 to 12 in the Report. The Premises were not equipped with any fire protection system. The origin of the fire was found to be in Room 8 where the fire damage was noted to be more severe compared to the passageway and other parts of the Premises. Burn patterns were consistent with that of a fire that originated from the area between a three-tier metal drawer and underneath the lower deck of a double-decker bed in Room 8. Burnt marks were seen on the floor of Room 8 where remnants of a portable socket outlet and other electrical devices were found at the area where the fire is believed to have originated. It was observed that “daisy-chaining” (ie connecting portable socket outlets to other portable socket outlets) was widely practised within the Premises. Many electrical appliances (such as refrigerators, televisions, rice cookers, kettles, mobile phone chargers) were seen connected to multi-way adaptors throughout the Premises. Room 9, where the two deceased victims were found, was situated next to Room 8 where the fire originated. Smoke and combustion gases from the development of the fire were able to enter Room 9 through gaps in the partition walls and fixtures. This was evident from the soot stains observed at the gaps, walls and ceilings. The inhalation of smoke and other combustion gases would have rendered the two occupants in Room 9 unconscious, and following that, death. The most probable cause of the fire was accidental and of electrical origin. Heat from energised wirings / connections at the portable socket outlet had provided the ignition source with the ignition fuel being the portable socket outlet and combustibles in the area. These included a burnt suitcase that had contained clothing.

Coroner’s finding

The Fire Investigation Report had been relied on extensively in the Coroner’s Inquiry into the deaths of the Deceased and Hosen Ali.

From the Coroner’s Certificate which outlined the investigations carried out by PW3 from SCDF together with that of the Singapore Police Force (“the Police”) investigation officer, Ng Gim Hwee Jerome, from Bedok Police Division (PW4), the coroner recorded the following: The Premises were found to have housed no fewer than 34 occupants. The Police had interviewed 32 occupants – eight from Room 1, nine from Room 3, five from Room 5, three occupants from Room 7, two each from Rooms 8, 10 and 12, and a single occupant from Room 11. Each of them gave an account of how they were awakened by shouts as the fire developed and how they managed to escape. At Room 8 where the fire was found to have originated, one Mr Islam Mohamed Rakibul was the only person in occupation then while his roommate was outside. He was asleep when he felt the sensation of heat in close proximity. He woke up to the presence of thick smoke around his room. He immediately ran out of his bedroom to the ground floor for safety without notifying the workers in rooms 9 or 10. He stated that he had left his handphone charging on one of the power sockets. SCDF had established the cause of the fire as accidental and of electric origin.

The coroner concluded that the two deceased victims were apparently asleep and oblivious to the impending jeopardy when the smoke and combustion gases from the adjacent room entered Room 9. From the position of his body which was found to be lying on the floor in a supine position, it was likely that the Deceased had woken up but was quickly overcome by the toxic smoke of the fire and fell unconscious onto the floor before he could make his escape. The other victim, Hosen Ali, who was found on his bed, had likely inhaled a large amount of smoke and died in his sleep. Given these circumstances, the coroner found that the deaths of both men were tragic misadventures¹⁷.

The plaintiff’s pleaded case

The plaintiff’s case is that the Four Defendants had breached their duty of care in ensuring that the Premises were fit for the accommodation of foreign workers thereby causing the death of the Deceased. The pleaded particulars of the Four Defendants’ negligence are as follows¹⁸: creating an improvised illegal dormitory for foreign workers, failing to ensure that the Premises were fit for occupancy, failing to ensure that the Premises were equipped with a fire protection system, failing to ensure that the Premises were compliant with statutory regulations for the housing of foreign workers, failing to inspect the Premises for any unlawful modifications, failing to prevent unlawful modifications of and to the Premises, failing to control the number of occupants in the Premises, failing to ensure that the electrical appliances, wiring...