Rightrac Trading v Ong Soon Heng t/a Everbright Engineering & Trading and Another (Seow Hock Ann, Third Party)

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Lai Siu Chiu J
• Judgment Date: 13 October 2003
• Neutral Citation: [2003] SGHC 236
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Court Suit No 28172 (Registrar's Appeal No 18 of 2003)
• Date: 13 October 2003
• Year: 2003
• Published date: 28 November 2003
• Plaintiff Counsel: R E Martin and Loo Ngan Chor (Loo Ngan Chor & Co)
• Citation: [2003] SGHC 236
• Defendant Counsel: Chia Ho Choon (Ng Lee & Partners)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Plaintiff commenced action in Magistrate's Court and applied to transfer claim to District Court as value of claim subsequently exceeded jurisdiction of Magistrate's Court,Whether s 53 of the Subordinate Courts Act (Cap 321, 1999 Rev Ed) applied,Magistrates’ courts,Courts and Jurisdiction,Applicable test,Whether plaintiff entitled to transfer as of right,Transfer to District Court

The background

1 Rightrac Trading (the plaintiffs) sued Everbright Engineering & Trading and Lim Kim Choon (the first and second defendants respectively) for damage caused to the plaintiff's crane. The first defendant was sued vicariously in his capacity as the employer of the second defendant. It was the second defendant who operated the plaintiffs' crane and used it to remove scrap metal in the course of which the boom of the crane snapped and bent.

2 In the statement of claim, the plaintiffs pleaded that the value of their crane before the damage was about $50,000/-, which figure is below the limit for claims ($60,000/-) filed in the Magistrates' Courts, pursuant to s 2 of the Subordinate Courts Act Cap 321 (SCA).

3 On 20 March 2003, the plaintiffs filed summons for directions no. 5959 of 2003 (the application) wherein they inter alia applied (in paras 3 and 5) for their claim (after amendment) to be transferred to the District Courts and renamed accordingly; the draft amended statement of claim (for which they also sought leave to file under para 6) attached to the application showed that the value of the damaged crane had increased to $65,000/-, thereby taking the claim out of the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Courts.

4 The application for transfer was dismissed by the Deputy Registrar of the Subordinate Courts on 29 April 2003 and was similarly dismissed on 6 June 2003 on appeal to a District Judge in chambers. Consequently, by way of Registrar's Appeal No 18 of 2003 (the Appeal), the plaintiffs appealed to the High Court which appeal came on for hearing before me.

The decision below

5 Both the Deputy Registrar who heard the application and the District Judge who heard the plaintiffs' appeal, felt bound by the decision in Tan Kok Ing v Tan Swee Meng & Others [2003] 1 SLR 657. In that case, the High Court ruled that there was no inherent jurisdiction in the Magistrates' Courts to transfer an action commenced in the Magistrates’ Courts to the District Courts. Any such transfer had to meet the requirements of s 53 of the SCA which states:-

A Magistrate's Court may, either of its own motion or on the application of a party to an action, transfer the action to a District Court on the ground that some important question of law or fact is likely to arise.

The court in Tan Kok Ing held that for the question of law or fact to be "important", it should affect more than the immediate interests of the parties. The amount in issue in itself did not show an "important question of law or fact that is likely to arise". The court further held that O 89 r 4 of the Rules of Court (the Rules) being subsidiary legislation, must be read subject to s 53.

6 Before the District Judge, counsel for the plaintiffs when asked if there was some important question of law or fact that is likely to arise, had answered in the negative and added that the only reason for the transfer was due to the (amended) claim being in excess of the jurisdiction for an MC suit.

The Appeal

7 Mr Martin for the plaintiffs referred to other sections of the SCA besides s 53, to the Rules, the Supreme Court of Judicature Act Cap 322 (the SCJA) and the Interpretation Act Cap 1. He submitted that the decision in Tan Kok Ing's case should not be followed because the court there did not consider other provisions in the above-mentioned Acts. Instead, he urged the court to follow the decision of the Court of Appeal in Ong Pang Wee & Others v Chiltern Park Development Pte Ltd [2003] 2 SLR 267. He noted that the court in Tan Kok Ing's case did not consider s 69 of the SCA whilst conversely, the Court of Appeal (majority decision) in Ong Pang Wee's case did not address s 53 thereof.

8 Counsel submitted that there is an exception to the rule that subsidiary legislation cannot override primary legislation, citing Whitefield Ltd v Starkey (1932) 32 SR (NSW) 651 and Halsbury's Laws of Australia vol 8 para 125-155). If the decision in Tan Kok Ing's case was followed, it meant that in giving effect to s 53 of the SCA, s 69 thereof was disregarded altogether. That however, would be contrary to the rule (see Halbury's Laws of England 4 ed vol 44(1) p 913 para 1481) that:

It is presumed that Parliament intends that the court, when considering, in relation to the facts of the instant case, which of the opposing constructions of an enactment corresponds to its legal meaning, should find against a construction that produces a futile or pointless result, since this is unlikely to have been intended by Parliament.

It would be appropriate at this juncture to refer to the two (2) local cases.

9 In Tan Kok Ing v Tan Swee Meng, the plaintiff applied to the Magistrates' Courts to transfer his claim (for damages arising from injuries sustained in a road accident) from the Magistrates' Courts to the District Courts, pursuant to s 53 of the SCA. After he had filed his claim (in MC Suit 12116 of 2000), it became apparent that the plaintiff's injuries were more serious than he had initially thought. The plaintiff's application failed before the Deputy Registrar and the District Judge. He appealed to the High Court by way of a Registrar's Appeal which appeal was dismissed by Woo JC who (in addition to the ground set out in para 5 above), held that the legislation does not allow the direct transfer of an action in the Magistrate's Court to the High Court. Neither does it allow the High Court to order a transfer from the Magistrates' Courts to the District Courts.

10 In arriving at his conclusions, Woo JC relied on Kee Chai Heng v Ketua Polis Daerah Kuala Muda [1999] 2 MLJ 668. While he did not agree with the submission of counsel for the defendants that O 89 r 4 of the Rules provided a procedure for transfer only after one of the limbs in s 53 of the SCA has been satisfied, he agreed that the rule should not be read in isolation. Otherwise, any Subordinate Court has an unfettered discretion to order a transfer of proceedings from a Magistrate's Court to a District Court so long as the court ordering the transfer is satisfied that the transfer ought to be effected, thereby rendering s 53 otiose.

11 In Tan Kok Ing's case, s 53 was contrasted with two (2) other provisions in the SCA, namely ss 24 and 38. Section 24 reads:

(1) Where, in an action founded on contract or tort in a District Court, any counterclaim or set-off and counterclaim of any defendant involves a matter beyond the jurisdiction of the District Court, any party to the action may apply to the High Court, within such time as may be prescribed by Rules of Court, for an order that the whole proceedings, or the proceedings on the counterclaim or set-off and counterclaim, be transferred to the High Court.

while s 38 states:

Where it is made to appear to the High Court, on the application of a party to any civil proceeding pending in a District Court, that the proceeding by reason of its involving some important question of law, or being a test case or for any other sufficient reason, is one which should be tried in the High Court, it may order the record to be transferred to the High Court.

12 The clear difference in wording between s 53 and s 24 means (as was canvassed before Woo JC) that Parliament did not intend the latter provision to operate automatically unlike the former, merely because a claim is found to exceed the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Courts. Section 38 gave the High Court the power, on an application made by a party to proceedings, to transfer District but not Magistrates' Courts claims, to the High Court.

13 The Malaysian court in Kee Chai Heng dealt with legislation which differed from ours in wording. There, the plaintiff had filed an action against the defendants for negligence in the sessions court. At the commencement of the hearing, the sessions court judge ordered the case to be transferred to the magistrate's court after giving the parties the opportunity to submit on this course of action. Dissatisfied with the order, the plaintiff appealed, contending that the total value of damages claimed would exceed RM25,000 and hence, by virtue of s 90 of the Subordinate Courts Act 1948 (the 1948 Act), the claim was outside the jurisdiction of the magistrate's court. The High Court allowed the plaintiff's appeal and held that in civil cases, a sessions court does not have the power to transfer any case filed before it to the magistrate's court. Under para 3(2) of the Third Schedule of the 1948 Act, the sessions court only has power to transfer a case that is before it to another court of co-ordinate jurisdiction, ie to another sessions court.

14 The decision was undoubtedly correct based on s 99A of the 1948 Act, which says:

In amplification and not in derogation of the powers conferred by this Act or inherent in any court, and without prejudice to the generality of any such powers, every Sessions Court and Magistrate's Court shall have the further powers and jurisdiction set out in The Third Schedule

read with para 3 of the Third Schedule (headed Transfer of Proceedings) which states:

(1) (Repealed by Act 7 of 1964).

(2) Power, on application or of its own motion, to transfer any proceedings to another court of co-ordinate jurisdiction.

while O 47 r 1 of the Malaysian Subordinate Courts Rules 1980 (made pursuant to the Malaysian Subordinate Courts Rules Act 1955) provides:

Where the Judge of any Court is satisfied that any proceedings in that Court can be more conveniently or fairly tried in some other Court he may order the proceedings to be transferred to the other Court.

15 Based on the principle that subsidiary legislation (O 47 r 1) cannot prevail over primary legislation (as contained in para 3 of the Third Schedule to the 1948 Act), the sessions court judge had no powers to transfer the case before him to a magistrate's court. As the Malaysian case was based on primary/subsidiary legislation which differs from ours, I do not find the case particularly helpful.

16 I turn next...