George Seah FJ:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court at Kuala Lumpur.

The facts may be briefly stated and they are as follows:

(a) The appellants, Lee Lau & Sons Realty Sdn. Bhd. operated and may still be operating a brick-making factory at Desa Jaya, Kepong, Selangor. They also owned a forklift machine which was under the management of the late Tan Kam Sing (hereinafter referred to as the deceased) at the material time.

(b) On 15 July 1978 at about 11 a.m. the deceased complained to Lee Swee Meng (DW1), a "Kepala" of the appellants, that the fan belt of the forklift had been broken. This was duly replaced by Chow Kwan Meng (DW2) a foreman of the appellants in charge of general repairs. At about 3 p.m. the same afternoon, the deceased lodged another complaint that the hydraulic pump of the forklift was leaking. At the request of the foreman, the deceased jacked up the forklift mechanically to a height between 5 to 6 feet and used 2 rubber tree stumps to support the heavy horizontal iron bar of the forklift. The foreman went under the raised forklift and saw that the oil ring of the hydraulic pump was leaking badly. While the foreman was away to get a spanner