The judgment affirms liability for torts based on overwhelming evidence, emphasizing the gravity of domestic violence.

Elaine Yap Chin Gaik JC:

Introduction

[1] The Defendants were found liable on a balance of probabilities for the tort of assault and battery, wrongful confinement and trespass to property after a full trial at the Sessions Court . Their counterclaim for defamation and assault were dismissed.

[2] These claims arose substantially from an ugly altercation on 21-2آ¬2020 at the 1st Defendant's residence in Bandar Sungai Buaya ("Premises") between the Plaintiff and the Defendants, who are all relatives of the Plaintiff's ex-wife ("Incident").

[3] The Defendants appealed to the High Court against the entire Judgment of the Sessions Court Judge. On 19 December 2024, I heard and dismissed the appeal. I upheld the Judgment of the Sessions Court and these are my grounds for doing so. In this judgment, I have referred to the parties as they were in the Court below.

The Pleaded Case

[4] On 21 -2-2020, the Plaintiff and his father had gone to the Premises to collect the Plaintiff's then 11-month-old son from his ex-wife. Based on the pleadings and evidence, there was significant marital strife between them and involvement of the wife's family in that state of affairs.

[5] The Defendants were all admittedly present at the premises on 21آ¬2-2020 at some point during the Incident. The narration of how events allegedly unfolded and escalated during the Incident were detailed in the Statement of Claim and repeated in witness testimony. The pleadings in this case read like affidavits.

[6] The Defendants did not deny that the Incident took place and that there were physical scuffles, raised voices and damage to the Plaintiff's car. They pleaded a somewhat different and watered-down version of events. The gist of the pleaded defence is that the Plaintiff was the aggressor.

[7] The defamation counterclaim was based on the publication on WhatsApp status of a video of the Incident and images with captions and comments identifying the Defendants. The Defendants say that the captions and comments were capable of being understood to mean by way of innuendo that the 6th Defendant instigated the 1st to 5th Defendants to commit assault and battery, and they were of such character that they did so and also damaged the Plaintiff's car.

[8] The Plaintiff denied that the material published were defamatory and further relied on the defence of justification and fair comment. According to the Plaintiff, the publication was intended to show that he had evidence of what happened during the Incident and that he was the victim.

Tort Of Trespass

[9] I have set out below, descriptions of the tort of assault, battery and false imprisonment from Halsbury's Laws of Malaysia - Tort (Volume 13(2)). These are the 3 recognized torts that this Court could identify from the pleadings which fall under the rubric of trespass to the person and are actionable per se.

[10] Assault is an intentional act of force or violence to the person of another. There is an assault if there is a threat of violence and the defendant is capable, or is in a position, to inflict force on the plaintiff. The threat must be accompanied by an intention to commit the violence or it must have caused the plaintiff reasonable apprehension of an immediate infliction of force on him.

[11] Battery is an act of the defendant which directly and either intentionally or negligently causes some physical contact with the person of the plaintiff without the plaintiff's consent. A mere passive obstruction is not battery. The contact must be voluntary; the intentional aspect of th