The court affirmed that one tenancy agreement was validly terminated while the second was wrongfully terminated, awarding damages for the latter's breach.

JUDGMENT

(After Full Trial)

Tee Geok Hock JC:

Introduction

[1] The disputes in the present case relate to the plaintiff-tenant's claims for reliefs and damages arising from the defendant- landlord's termination of two separate tenancy agreements for two adjacent plots of vacant land.

[2] When the two adjacent plots of vacant land were required for purposes of LRT 3 public transportation project on Park N Ride, the defendant-landlord terminated the tenancy agreements. The plaintiff-tenant takes the position that the termination of tenancies was wrongful, and sues for declaratory reliefs and damages.

[3] After a full trial of 3 days, this Court held that one tenancy agreement was wrongly terminated while the other tenancy agreement was validly terminated. This Court awarded some damages to the plaintiff in respect of the tenancy agreement which was wrongfully terminated.

[4] Both the plaintiff-tenant and the defendant-landlord are unhappy with the decision and they have both filed their respective Notices of Appeal.

Parties' Pleaded Case And Defences

[5] The plaintiff in the present case seeks a declaration that the Tenancy Agreements for the two plots of land (if valid) were wrongfully terminated by the defendant and praying for damages of RM696,697.00; a declaration that both the Tenancy Agreements were null and void and prays for refund of RM576,220.00 as rentals paid under undue influence; and prayer for punitive and exemplary damages and for costs. Among others, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant misrepresented to the plaintiff that the defendant was the registered proprietor of the said lands.

[6] On the other hand, the defendant's position is that there was no misrepresentation, that the tenancy agreements were validly terminated as they were required for a public project, and that the plaintiff was not entitled to any refund of rental or any damages.

Cause Papers And Full trial

[7] At a pre-trial case management session, the following documents in the cause papers were marked with the respective numbers as stated below:

[8] It was also the agreed procedure that:

(1) At the full trial, upon the witness' affirmation and confirmation of the contents of his/her Witness Statement as his/her evidence, the Witness Statement and its contents are deemed to be read and there is no necessity for the witness to read the contents of the Witness Statement into the CRT system. This procedure is without prejudice to the rule against hearsay, ie the principle of evidence which requires witnesses to testify as to facts and matters within their personal knowledge and not on hearsay evidence. Liberty is given to the Counsel to ask supplementary or additional questions in examination-in-chief to clarify or explain or highlight salient parts of the Witness Statement before the cross-examination begins.

(2) In order to save time and costs at the full trial, the Part A and Part B documents referred to in the witnesses' statements and evidence are marked as per the marking of Agreed Bundles of Documents as "AA" and "AB" numbers respectively followed by the page numbers and there is no necessity to mark the relevant pages of the Part A and Part B documents with separate exhibit numbers again. However, this procedure shall be without prejudice to the rule against hearsay. Part C document, when either upgraded into Part B document or its original has been tendered by the maker and verified as authentic, shall be marked with a separate exhibit number.

[9] The trial proceeded for 3 days on 28 March 2022, 30 March 2022 and 18 April 2022 at which the following 9 witnesses attended and gave oral evidence:

[10] The following exhibits were marked before and/or during the trial:

Agreed Facts

[11] Through the Statement of Agreed Facts marked as "SAF" (encl 34), the parties agreed to the following facts:

i. Plaintif adalah sebuah syarikat yang ditubuhkan di bawah Akta Syarikat 1965 dan mempunyai alamat berdaftar di B607, 6th Floor, Block B, Kelana Square, 17 Jalan SS7/26,