CHAN WING CHEUNG ALLAN v. HO SHUK YEE SUSANA

HCA 1941/2000

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

ACTION NO.1941 OF 2000

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Before : Hon Waung J in Chambers

Date of Hearing : 13 December 2004

Date of Judgment: 13 December 2004

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J U D G M E N T

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1. I have today the direction hearing of pre-trial review for a trial that it is supposed to start in January 2005.  At the pre-trial review it transpired that the defendant, who alleges, in defence to the loan and in support of a counterclaim, that she would be relying on many many loans to the plaintiff of various sums, some of them not fully particularized given on various days, many of them not particularized, and in most of them by cash.  The defendant is seeking leave to adduce (contrary to the previous order made) supplementary witness statement of the defendant plus introducing three more witnesses with their statements. 

2. The Order in relation to the filing of witness statements had been made as early as 27 March 2003 by Master Lung.  Long time had passed since that day.  Trial was fixed on 7 January 2004 forfive days on the basis of the order made by Master Lung.  Now at the last minute, the defendant seeks to rely on these additional materials.  As I have indicated to Mr Lam, counsel for the defendant that this proposal would result in the trial not taking five days, but perhaps 20 days, specially if Mr Lam is going to have the free scope that he is seeking from the court.  It seems to me that it is wholly wrong to allow this to happen. 

3. An option was discussed as to allowing in these new materials herein, but only on condition of either payment into court of the sum claimed or by the defendant providing some sort of security of costs or combination of both.  This was rejected by Mr Lam.  It seems to me that the only sensible case management course I can take in the circumstances is by a combination of ordering a Scott Schedule of the full particulars of the many alleged loans by the defendant to the plaintiff by way of the five columns which had been indicated to the parties, and by the limiting of the trial to six days (starting on 12 January) and finally by way of an allocation of time for the parties’ opening speech, the parties’ witnesses ─ allocation [JA1] of witnesses for the defendant as well as witnesses for the plaintiff and for the closing speech, and by the special direction of the defendant to open preceded by the defendant written opening.  This seems to me to be a fair way of achieving justice over all.  By the unusual nature of this case, this is the only reasonable way to go forward.  As a case management exercise, this seems to me the just and fair way to proceed.  So this is what I order.

4. I understand that there is some unhappiness on Mr Lam’s part and he wishes to take the matter of this case management order or considers taking the matter to the Court of Appeal.  I have taken the unusual course of stating my reasons for my order under a pre-trial review which started at 9:30 a.m. and which continued until 10:50 a.m. (with other parties in my next case waiting to come on).  I hope that with these directions, the parties would be able to prepare for the trial and the case can commence on 12 January as I have indicated to the parties.