In this article publish on the 2nd of June 2015, the case of dispute was between two young boys named Jee Kinson, 13, and Jee Kinland, 11, versus the Malaysia Airlines System Berhad (MAS). This case is in regards to their late father, 41, who was a victim of the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 occurred during 8th of March 2014. The case was initially brought upon to the Kuala Lumpur High Court in 1st of November 2014, sued under the plaintiff’s mother known as Ng.  The case was supported by the Messrs Rumah Arunan & Associates, and lawyer Datuk Dr. Arunan Selvaraj who represented the two boys. The main defendant acclaimed will be MAS, over the act of Negligence over thier duties. As well as the three others controlling bodies, under defence of Negligence, also includes the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), the Immigration Department, as well as the Royal Malaysian Air Force.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illustration: Datuk Dr. Arunan Selvaraj who filed a lawsuit against Malaysia Airlines on behalf of the two boys whose father was on ill-fated MH370, speaks outside with reporters in the court of Kuala Lumpur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main focus that revolves around this case is the act of Negligence that the company must be able to comply. Negligence is formed under the Law of Intentional Torts, and is defined as the most important area of tort laws in Malaysia. From what has been learned in the class of Business Law, the law of intentional tort provides a course of remedy to compensate any injuries or damages. Furthermore, the way of how Negligence is formed will be categorized into 3 main areas. Which are:

 

                                                                               I. Duty of Care,

                                                                              II. Breach of Duty, &;

                                                                             III. Consequential Damage

 

In the Duty of Care, it is a legal obligation that is imposed to an individual or a firm. It requires these parties to be adherence to a standard of reasonable care, while performing any acts that may foreseeably harm others involved. This inflicts to MAS, where the company have been regarded to be kept in a constant standard to foresee any faults that may bring any foreseeable harm to its passengers. In this case of MH370, it has been reported that the company did not address the issue that the flight went missing during the first few hours of radar disappearance en route to Beijing. MAS had breach this order, in which this ultimately led to the breach of duty.

 

Breach of Duty explains that when the individual or the firm had fallen into a defence below the standard or reasonable case, then there is a breach of duty. During the first few hours of disappearance, MAS supposingly must make swift reports to the public of the missing plane. But instead, MAS breach this duty to form Negligence that they accumulated a few hours gap to report the missing plane to the public media.

 

In Consequential Damage, it is the damages caused from the neglection of the failures made by the breach of duty. In relation to the case, the two boys managed to file a lawsuit over Malaysia Airlines for the damage they have cause to the boys’ father, and ultimately towards the rest of the families involved as well. This brings from the start of the duty of care, towards the breach of that duty, and lastly to bring forth the consequential damages caused.

 

Furthermore, lawyers well-versed in aviation law highlights then that Putrajaya’s declaration was an admission of liability and the airline had no defence, should suits filed against it. In the case of the court, MAS has been sued for Negligence through vicarious liability. Vicarious liability refers to the situation when someone is held responsible for the actions or omissions of another person. In this context, MAS

 

In my personal opinion, MAS should be more responsible and prudent enough to report the missing plane right away as it is known during the catastrophe occurred. MAS will not be sued under Negligence if they have promptly reached out the public involved with swift and accurate answers. Instead the company will be filed just under breach of contract, as they are currently facing that defence as well. Instead of double counts of defences the company may need to be held upon. In the previous conference held by MAS, most of the time the company had given repetitive and inaccurate answers towards the media. This led to a public outrage that they perceived the company is not able to settle upon such crisis appropriately. Currently, the case settlement has been preceded by the compensation from MAS of US$ 50,000 (or RM180,000) to the Jee family under Negligence. But according to the Montreal Convention, a multilateral treaty that governs international transportation of passengers and cargo, a maximum of US$ 175,000 (or RM630,000) can be offered in compensation by airlines. In my view, MAS could have avoided this substantial lawsuit. If they were to follow a more outstanding approach towards their crisis management resolution, it is in order to appease the impacted families and also to the general public through this approach.