TSANG LING CHU v. DIRECTOR OF LANDS

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1996, No. 123
(Civil)

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J U D G M E N T

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Litton, V.-P. (giving the judgment of the Court):

1. We have before us a motion taken out by the Director of Lands for an order that the notice of appeal lodged by the appellant dated 3 July 1996 be struck out and the appeal dismissed under the inherent jurisdiction of the court.

2. This relates to a claim for compensation in the Lands Tribunal made by the appellant who is the sole proprietor of a workshop known as Wrench Engineering Co. which operated in rented premises on the Ground Floor of No. 8 Sui Lun Street, Ma Tau Kok.

3. The business was extinguished when the Crown resumed the property on 3 October 1992 pursuant to the Ma Tau Wai Urban Improvement Scheme. The claim was confined to compensation for business loss under section 10(2)(d) of the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance, Cap 124.

4. The claim as placed before the tribunal by the appellant amounted to a total of approximately $7.72m which comprised two main items: (1) loss of goodwill amounting to $1.404m; and (2) loss on forced sale of stock, machinery and equipment amounting to approximately $5.9m. In the result the tribunal accepted in effect the entirety of the claimed loss of goodwill and in the exercise of their judgment rounded down the figure from $1.404 to $1.4m.

5. As regards the claim for loss on forced sale of machinery, equipment and stock the tribunal awarded a figure of $2.08m. This was computed on the basis of the value of the machinery, equipment and stock at the relevant date, that is, $2.6m less the sum of $520,000 yielded on the auction conducted in April 1994.

6. The tribunal had approached the task of assessment with meticulous care and are to be commended for their efforts.

7. On 3 July 1996 the appellant lodged a notice of appeal claiming that the amount of compensation should be adjusted to the figure as originally claimed namely $7.72m. The ground of appeal is stated as follows:

"The ground for the review is: the calculation method for assessing loss on forced sale of stock, machinery and equipment cannot reflect my actual loss due to this resumption scheme. The submitted evidence are insufficient to assess each item one by one."

8. This plainly is not a point of law. The jurisdiction of this court on appeal is confined by s11(2) of the Lands Tribunal Ordinance, Cap 17 which states:

"any party to proceedings before the Tribunal may appeal to the Court of Appeal against a determination or order of the Tribunal on the ground that such determination or order is erroneous in point of law."

9. On the face of it, the notice of appeal is defective and must be struck out. The appellant has a few days ago lodged with the court a considerable volume of material, supplemented by a document called "skeleton arguments". He has added to the points by oral submissions today. But for the fact that the appellant is not legally represented we would not have entertained the "skeleton arguments" because it does not support anything stated in the notice of appeal.

10. We have however conceived it to be our duty to look carefully at the points raised, to see whether arguably there might be said to be a point of law for further consideration by this court. Having considered the material and listened to the appellant with care we have not been able to detect any error of law. The consequence must be that the Director's motion must succeed. The notice of appeal is struck out and the appeal is dismissed and, subject to anything that the appellant might want to say, it will be dismissed with costs.