Court : South Africa Supreme Court of Appeal
Decided on : Mar-25-2014
On appeal from: Western Cape High Court, Cape Town (Louw, Ndita JJ and Dolamo AJ sitting as court of appeal): 1. The appeal is dismissed with costs, such costs to include those consequent upon the employment of two counsel. 2. The cross-appeal succeeds with costs, such costs to include those consequent upon the employment of two counsel. 3. Paragraph 2 of the order of the court below is amended to read as follows: The orders made by the court a quo are set aside and the following substituted orders are made: 1. The Eighth and Ninth Respondents are ordered to pay, jointly and severally, the following amounts: (a) The sum of R12 million. (b) Interest on the sum of R12 million up until 10 February 2010 in the amount of R12 million. (c) Further interest on the capital sum of R12 million at a rate of 3% per month from 10 February 2010 to 24 February 2012. (d) Interest on the total of the amounts set out in paras (a), (b) and (c) above at a rate of 3% per month from 25 February 2012 to date ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Pakistan Supreme Court
Decided on : Mar-20-2014
1. Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, J.:Cricket and judicial decision making may not have much in common except that there is an umpire in the game of cricket deciding 'appeals' and judging various issues arising during the progress of the game and there may be some judges sitting in their courtrooms who may sometimes be tempted to hit the ball over the boundary rope. Likeness of a judge to an umpire in a game of cricket has already been alluded to by none other than Lord Denning in his judgment delivered in the case ofJones v. National Coal Board[(1957) 2 Q.B. 55]. His lordship had observed that "Even in England, however, a Judge is not a mere umpire to answer the question "How's that?". His object, above all, is to find out the truth, and to do justice according to law;". Another common factor between the two is that both cricket and judicial decision making are played/ practised by gentlemen, and now by noble ladies as well. All of us know that cricket has moulded itself over time and has adap...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Singapore Supreme Court
Decided on : Mar-18-2014
Lee Seiu Kin: 1. In this summons the defendant applied for a declaration that its acceptance on 24 September 2013 of the plaintiff's offer to settle dated 28 July 2011 was valid and that the action had been settled on the following terms: (a) The defendant is to pay to the plaintiff the sum of S$2,588,666. (b) The defendant is to pay to the plaintiff the plaintiff's costs of the claim and counterclaim to be taxed if not agreed: (i) on a standard basis, from the date of commencement of these proceedings on 20 May 2011 to 11 August 2011; and (ii) on an indemnity basis, from 12 August 2011 up to the date of the defendant's notice of acceptance (ie, 24 September 2013). (c) The defendant is to pay to the plaintiff interest at 1.5% per annum, for the period from 20 May 2011 up to the date of payment. (d) The plaintiff is to discontinue its claims against the defendant within seven days of payment of the sum of S$2,588,666, interest and costs. 2. On 5 November 2013, after hearing submissions ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : South Africa Supreme Court of Appeal
Decided on : Mar-14-2014
On appeal from: Western Cape High Court (Louw J sitting as court of first instance): The appeal is upheld with costs and the order of the court below is altered to one dismissing the special plea of prescription with costs. JUDGMENT Wallis JA(Navsa, Shongwe and Theron JJA and Legodi AJA concurring) [1] Mr Malcolm was born on 2[] J[] 1[]. In 1993, when he was six years old, he was diagnosed with Stage 1 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He was admitted to the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town for treatment. He alleges that whilst he was in hospital undergoing treatment there was an outbreak of Hepatitis B at the hospital and in October 1994 he was diagnosed with that disease. He ascribes his infection with Hepatitis B to negligence on the part of the hospital and its staff and seeks by this action to recover damages. His claim was met with a special plea of prescription, which Louw J upheld. The appeal is with his leave. [2] In terms of s11(d) of the Prescription Act 68 of 1969 (the Act) the...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Singapore Supreme Court
Decided on : Mar-13-2014
Chao Hick Tin JA (delivering the grounds of decision of the court): 1. These were two related appeals brought by the accused person (hereinafter referred to as "the Appellant") and the Public Prosecutor, respectively, following a trial and the finding of guilt by the High Court judge ("the Judge") against the Appellant on three sexual offence charges and the acquittal of the Appellant of a single charge of impersonation under s 170 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) ("s 170" and "the Code" respectively). CCA No 7 of 2013 ("CCA 7") was the Appellant's appeal against the convictions found against him as well as the sentences imposed. CCA No 8 of 2013 ("CCA 8") was the Public Prosecutor's appeal against the acquittal. 2. At the conclusion of the hearing, we dismissed CCA 7 but allowed CCA 8 and convicted the Appellant on the charge of impersonation. We now give our reasons. The Charges 3. The charges which were brought against the Appellant were as follows: 1st Charge: [You, the Ac...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Singapore Supreme Court
Decided on : Mar-11-2014
Chan Wei Sern, Paul AR: 1. The plaintiff is a Singapore citizen who for many years carried on business activities in Malaysia. As a result of unsatisfied personal guarantees which he issued in favour of Malaysian companies, two separate judgments were rendered against the plaintiff by the High Court of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. The rights to these judgments were subsequently transferred to the first defendant. On the basis of one of these judgments, the 1st defendant petitioned for the plaintiff to be adjudged a bankrupt in Malaysia. On the basis of the other, the 1st defendant applied for the plaintiff to be adjudged a bankrupt in Singapore. On both counts, the 1st defendant was successful and the plaintiff was declared a bankrupt in Malaysia and Singapore in turn. In respect of the Singapore bankruptcy, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th defendants were appointed as private trustees to act in place of the Official Assignee. 2. The plaintiff now seeks to annul the Singapore bankruptcy order. To persu...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Australia High Court
Decided on : Mar-05-2014
FRENCH CJ, HAYNE, CRENNAN AND KIEFEL JJ. 1. The first issue in these appeals is the construction and application of a long term gas supply agreement ("the GSA") between Electricity Generation Corporation trading as Verve Energy ("Verve") and various gas suppliers in Western Australia including Woodside Energy Ltd ("the Sellers"). The Sellers are the respondents to the first appeal and the appellants in the second. 2. Verve, a statutory corporation, is the major generator and supplier of electricity to a large area in the southwest of Western Australia, including Perth. Verve purchases natural gas under the GSA for use in its power stations. Separate contracts between Verve and each of the Sellers are contained in the GSA[1], which obliges each Seller to make available for delivery to Verve a proportionate share of a maximum daily quantity of gas ("MDQ"), delivered in a common and commingled stream[2], and to use "reasonable endeavours"[3] to make available to Verve a supplemental maxim...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Singapore Supreme Court
Decided on : Feb-25-2014
Choo Han Teck J: 1. The plaintiff is a Chinese woman married to a German of Caucasian descent. They have a son conceived in 2006 through an assisted fertilisation procedure commonly known as In-Vitro Fertilisation or "IVF" for short. In October 2010 the plaintiff delivered a daughter (named "Baby P" in this action) also conceived through IVF. When the IVF procedure was carried out in respect of Baby P, a mistake was made and the plaintiff's egg was fertilised with the sperm of a third party male ("the Donor") instead of the sperm of the plaintiff's husband. The plaintiff sued the defendants in the tort of negligence and breach of contract. 2. The first defendant is the company that owned the second defendant, which was the medical centre in which the IVF procedure was carried out on the plaintiff. The third defendant was the embryologist who was responsible for the collection and storage of the bottle containing the plaintiff's husband's sperms. The fourth defendant was the Chief Embry...
Tag this Judgment!Court : New Zealand Court of Appeal
Decided on : Feb-19-2014
(Given by White J) Introduction [1] On 20 January 2012 the police executed search warrants at the properties of the first and fourth respondents, Messrs Kim Dotcom and Bram van der Kolk. Acting under the warrants, which had been obtained the previous day from a District Court Judge, the police seized more than 135 electronic items, including laptops, computers, portable hard drives, flash storage devices and servers, containing an estimated 150 terabytes of data. [2] The search warrants were obtained under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1992 (the MACMA) at the request of the Department of Justice of the United States of America which is seeking the extradition of the four respondents to face charges in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia of criminal copyright offending and money laundering involving substantial sums of money. [3] The police also obtained warrants for the arrest of the four respondents and they were arrested at the same t...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Feb-26-2014
The issues raised by this appeal 1. This appeal raises a number of points in connection with the law of private nuisance, a common law tort While the law also recognises public nuisance, a common law offence, this appeal is only concerned with private nuisance, so all references hereafter to nuisance are to private nuisance It should also be mentioned at the outset that the type of nuisance alleged in this case is nuisance in the sense of personal discomfort, in particular nuisance by noise, as opposed to actual injury to the claimant's property (such as discharge of noxious material or removal of support) 2. As Lord Goff of Chieveley explained in Hunter v Canary Wharf Ltd [1997] AC 655, 688, "[t]he term 'nuisance' is properly applied only to such actionable user of land as interferes with the enjoyment by the plaintiff of rights in land", quoting from Newark, The Boundaries of Nuisance (1949) 65 LQR 480 See also per Lord Hoffmann at pp 705-707, where he explained that this principle m...
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