Appellants entitled to remedies despite previous ruling-based errors; reliance on internal management rules is emphasized.

[1] These four appeals arose from four suits which were retried together before the same learned Judicial Commissioner following a successful appeal to the Court of Appeal by the respondent. The Court of Appeal had ordered the retrials upon finding that the approach taken by the learned judge in the first trial was erroneous. The learned judge had heard the first of four cases and had used her decision in that first decision as a test case to bind the remaining three cases. The Court of Appeal disagreed with that approach holding that each case had to be tried separately and consecutively. Hence, the retrials.

[2] The learned JC had proceeded accordingly with the trials. Each plaintiff led his/their case followed by the defendant in response to all four claims since the evidence adduced by the defendant was the same for all four cases. Insofar as the grounds of judgment are concerned, there is only one but the learned JC was careful to express that the evidence applicable to each plaintiff(s) was evaluated separately, in particular on the question of whether each plaintiff had proved his/their claim so as to entitle him/them to the remedy of specific performance. The learned JC found none of the claims proved and proceeded to dismiss all four claims. However, the counterclaims of the defendant was allowed; and the Court ordered that the physical possession of the properties to be returned to the defendant. All four plaintiffs appealed. There is no appeal or cross-appeals from the respondent.

[3] Upon hearing the counsel and following careful consideration of the records of appeal and the written/oral submissions of all counsel, we found merits in each appeal. We found that the learned JC had misapprehended the facts and had in effect failed to consider the totality of the evidence before him such that the decision reached was plainly wrong. We then unanimously allowed all four appeals. These are our reasons in full.

Facts

[4] The respondent in the four appeals was the vendor and developer of a housing project in Kepong called "Taman Fadason" developed on land held under master title HS (D) 104603 PT 19507, Mukim Batu, Daerah Kuala Lumpur (the project). The proprietor of the land was Datuk Bandar Kuala Lumpur (DBKL). The four appellants were four individuals or parties who had separately bought from the respondent, two-storey link houses located in Taman Fadason. Each appellant signed separate but substantially similar, tripartite sale and purchase agreements (SPAs) with the respondent and DBKL for the purchase of their house. Each SPA was dated 21 April 2006. Each house was already fully constructed at the time of the SPA. The responden's then Managing Director, Lee Chee Thing (Lee), signed all the SPAs on behalf of the respondent. DBKL had its authorised signatory sign on its behalf.

[5] The details of the four purchases are best depicted in the chart below:

[6] At the material time, none of the appellants knew each other. They, however, ended up using the same firm of solicitors, Yew How & Tan, for the purpose of the SPAs. In the case of the appellant in the first appeal, Lee Chee Keong, he knew Lee Yee How, a partner of the firm while the appellant in the second appeal, Lim Chin Keong had previously used the firm for unrelated matters. The appellants in the third and fourth appeals were introduced to Lee Yee How by a property agent known as Kenneth or Kenneth Yap, since deceased. Lee Yee How testified at the trial as PW2.

[7] Each appellant testified that Lee offered each of them a 10% discount off the original purchase price of the