AY 2011-2012, Term 1
Group 8 Project Written Analysis
Tort of Negligence
Prepared for: Professor Melvyn Chew Written By:
Jamie Lim Jia Qi (#12)
Joel Koh Yong Kiat (#14)
Low Hwan Hong (#23)
Oh Zhan Yuan (#24)
Ong Hui Ming Maria Nicolette (#25)
G12
Throughout the course of this report, to determine if the plaintiff is owed a duty of care in negligence, we will adhere by the Singapore single test of negligence laid out in the case of Spandeck Engineering (S) Pte Ltd v Defence Science & Technology Agency [2007] SGCA 37; [2007] 4 SLR 100, which states that the following factors must be satisfied in order for a duty of care in negligence to arise:
1) Test for factual foreseeability
2) Test for proximity
3) Test for policy
Case 1: MMBooks v Hamza Construction Ltd (‘HCL’)
Hamza Construction Ltd (‘HCL’) is doing some tunnel work for the MRT Circle line in the Bras Basah area. At about 11am one Friday morning, one of their workers excavated into some telephone and electricity cables. This affected a building down the road where a bookshop, MM Books is located. MMBooks had to close their shop for four hours because of the power outage. When power was restored at 3pm, MMBooks realized that all of their computers no longer worked. The computer technician they called, Larry Lim, said that a huge power surge had damaged the computers. Advise MMBooks.
In this case, our group has identified that we have to determine if MMBooks can claim for damages in tort of negligence as well as the type of damages that they can claim.
1.1 Requirements for MMBooks to be able to claim in Tort of Negligence
For MMBooks to take action in tort of negligence against ‘HCL’, a few legal requirements need to be fulfilled prior to that, which are:
a) A duty of care owed by HCL to MMBooks must exist
b) HCL breached its duty of care owed to MMBooks
c) MMBooks suffered loss from the breach
1.2 Legal Issue 1: Did