RK Nathan J:

Facts

The defendant bank sued the plaintiff for credit facilities granted to the plaintiff and subsequently obtained judgment in default on 15 May 1987 with interest and costs. Because of the plaintiff's non-payment the amount escalated to RM62,658.57 and the bank then filed a bankruptcy notice for the said sum and the plaintiff accepted personal service of the said bankruptcy notice. The bank then proceeded to file the creditor's petition on 6 September 1991 and the plaintiff again accepted personal service of the same. A receiving order and an adjudication order were made against the plaintiff on 5 July 1993 and he was thus adjudicated a bankrupt. The plaintiff then negotiated with the bank which agreed to accept RM60,000 in full settlement. The bank's solicitors then wrote to the plaintiff's solicitors a letter dated 1 October 1993. The final paragraph of the said letter reads as follows:

Our clients have confirmed that the above borrower has fully settled his account. We have instructions to consent to your application to annul the Receiving and Adjudicating Orders.

Kindly serve the necessary papers on us.

The plaintiff had, in his letter dated 30 September 1993 enclosing the cheques in full settlement, said in para. 5 as follows:

5. Kindly therefore instruct your Solicitors forthwith to withdraw and annul the Adjudicating and Receiving Order made against me on 5th July, 1993.

Please extend me a copy of your instruction to your Solicitors withdrawing the same.

Thereafter neither party did anything until 9 February 1994 when the plaintiff's solicitors wrote to the bank's solicitors. The said letter, inter alia, reads as follows:

We shall be grateful if you file the necessary application to Court to rescind the Adjudication Order made against our client on 6.7.1993 under Section 105 of the Bankruptcy Acton the grounds that our client ought not to be made a bankrupt since he has been regularly servicing the overdraft facility with your client.

Kindly avoid stating in the affidavit in support that the debt has been fully settled.

In the meantime, an advertisement from the Official Assignee (OA) that the plaintiff is a bankrupt appeared in the Utusan Malaysia on 10 February 1994 directing all debtors of the plaintiff to make payment to the OA directly. The plaintiff then filed an application on 17 February 1994 to annul the orders made against him and on 9 March 1994 the court annulled the receiving and adjudication orders made against the plaintiff.

On 16 November 1995 the plaintiff filed this suit against the defendant bank. The statement of claim of the plaintiff was no masterpiece of draftsmanship. In para. 8 of the said statement of claim the plaintiff contended that the advertisement of the OA had affected his good name and reputation and that he had been brought into public odium, hatred and disrepute and that this had affected his business. He then pleaded various items of special damages. In the alternative the plaintiff pleaded negligence and in respect of the particulars of negligence he pleaded that the defendant was negligent in failing to take the necessary action to annul the receiving and adjudication orders and also in failing to inform the OA that the plaintiff had settled the debt in full. On 18 December 1998 after going through their respective submissions my learned sister Datin Paduka Rahmah Hussain found for the plaintiff only on the issue of negligence and ordered damages to be assessed (see [1999] 4 CLJ 199). Whilst the defendant has appealed against that decision the plaintiff has not.

After numerous hearings on the issue of damages, the learned Senior Assistant Registrar ('SAR') held on 16 February 2000 that the plaintiff had failed to prove damages. She held that by failing to call witnesses from Mindef, the plaintiff had failed to prove that the alleged loss suffered by the plaintiff by Mindef not renewing his dobi contract and the sewing contract, was indeed due to the wrong