Case Details
- Citation: [2020] SGHC 184
- Title: ST Building Solutions Pte Ltd v FortyTwo Pte Ltd
- Court: High Court of the Republic of Singapore
- Date of decision: 1 September 2020 (judgment on assessment of damages)
- Procedural dates: Judgment reserved; 9 June 2020; 14 July 2020
- Judge: Choo Han Teck J
- Case type: Suit No 739 of 2019 (Assessment of Damages No 4 of 2020)
- Plaintiff/Applicant: ST Building Solutions Pte Ltd
- Defendant/Respondent: FortyTwo Pte Ltd
- Legal area: Damages — Assessment
- Statutes referenced: Civil Law Act
- Cases cited: [2020] SGHC 184 (as provided in metadata); Robertson Quay Investment Pte Ltd v Steen Consultants Pte Ltd and another [2008] 2 SLR(R) 623
- Judgment length: 17 pages, 4,919 words
Summary
ST Building Solutions Pte Ltd v FortyTwo Pte Ltd concerned the assessment of damages after the defendant conceded liability for a flooding incident caused by a leaking fire hose in the defendant’s unit. The plaintiff, a supplier of partition and ceiling boards, leased a warehouse unit directly below the defendant’s premises. Water overflowed into the plaintiff’s unit and allegedly damaged the plaintiff’s stored goods. While liability had already been established at an interlocutory stage, the High Court was required to determine what quantum of loss, if any, the plaintiff could prove on a balance of probabilities.
The court accepted the general legal principle that tort damages aim to place the plaintiff in the position it would have been in had the tort not been committed. However, the court held that the plaintiff failed to discharge its burden of proving both the fact and the quantum of damage to its goods in the quantities claimed. The plaintiff’s evidence—principally a “Draft List” and “Initial”/“Final” lists of damaged goods, supported by photographs and supplier letters—was found to be insufficiently reliable and insufficiently linked to specific items and quantities. As a result, the plaintiff’s primary claim for the market value of damaged goods was not made out on the evidence.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
The plaintiff, ST Building Solutions Pte Ltd (“ST Building”), is a Singapore-incorporated company in the business of supplying partition and ceiling boards. Between 1 May 2016 and 31 May 2019, ST Building leased a first-floor warehouse unit (“the Unit”). The Unit was located one floor directly below the defendant’s unit. ST Building used the Unit to store various goods, including boards and related packaging and materials.
The defendant, FortyTwo Pte Ltd (“FortyTwo”), is also a Singapore-incorporated company. Between 10 and 11 February 2019, a fire hose in FortyTwo’s unit began to leak. The leak caused water to overflow and flood ST Building’s Unit below. This flooding incident (“the incident”) formed the basis of ST Building’s tort claim in negligence and/or nuisance-type wrongdoing (the judgment proceeds on the tort framework for damages assessment). Shortly after the incident, on 12 February 2019, ST Building notified its insurer’s appointed loss adjusters, McLarens Singapore Pte Ltd (“McLarens”).
On McLarens’ advice, ST Building prepared a list recording descriptions and quantities of goods allegedly damaged by the flooding. This was referred to as the “Draft List”. On 22 February 2019, ST Building and McLarens conducted a joint inspection of the damaged goods. ST Building’s evidence was that McLarens “verified” the Draft List. Subsequently, in an email dated 27 February 2019, McLarens informed ST Building that three types of goods in the Draft List were “not available/found” during the joint inspection, and that the quantity of another damaged item should be higher. ST Building amended the list accordingly and produced an “Initial List” of 58 types of damaged goods.
ST Building later realised an error in classification: two different types of boards had been erroneously recorded as a single type. It corrected the Initial List and produced a “Final List” containing 59 different types of damaged goods. On 14 March 2019, ST Building informed FortyTwo that it would seek recovery for its losses and invited FortyTwo to appoint its own loss adjuster to independently verify the damage by 21 March 2019. FortyTwo did not inspect the damaged goods. ST Building’s demands for compensation did not succeed. ST Building disposed of the damaged goods between late April and early May 2019, close to the end of its lease of the Unit.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The central issue was the assessment of damages in tort, specifically what damage the flooding caused to ST Building’s goods and, therefore, what quantum of loss ST Building could recover. Because liability had been conceded, the dispute was not whether the incident occurred or whether FortyTwo was responsible, but whether ST Building proved that the goods were actually damaged (the “fact of damage”) and, if so, the extent of damage and the resulting monetary loss (the “quantum”).
A second issue concerned the evidential sufficiency of ST Building’s damage documentation. The court had to evaluate whether the lists (Draft, Initial, and Final) and the supporting materials (photographs and supplier letters) established, on a balance of probabilities, that the goods recorded as “damaged” were indeed damaged or “wet” in the quantities claimed. This required the court to scrutinise how the lists were compiled, what inspections were performed, and whether the evidence could reliably link particular items and quantities to the flooding.
Finally, the court also had to consider the causal structure of the claims. ST Building’s other heads of loss—such as freight forwarding costs wasted, waste disposal fees, labour costs for disposal, and loss of use of the Unit—depended “to some extent” on the answer to the central question: what damage the flooding caused to the goods. If the primary damage claim failed, the derivative claims would likely fail or be reduced accordingly.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The court began by restating the governing principle for tort damages: compensation is intended to place the plaintiff in the same position it would have been in had the tort not been committed. It emphasised that the burden of proof lies on the plaintiff to establish, on a balance of probabilities, both the fact of damage and its quantum. The court cited Robertson Quay Investment Pte Ltd v Steen Consultants Pte Ltd and another [2008] 2 SLR(R) 623 for this proposition. This framing is important because it clarifies that even where liability is conceded, the plaintiff must still prove the evidentiary basis for the claimed losses.
Turning to the plaintiff’s first and largest head of loss—loss in respect of damaged goods totalling $446,687.49—the court identified the “central question”: what damage did the flooding cause to the plaintiff’s goods? The plaintiff’s case was that all goods recorded in the Initial and Final Lists were damaged to such an extent that they had “no residual market value”. The plaintiff’s loss adjuster, Mr Ong Leong Koen, prepared an expert report supporting this position. The report relied on supplier letters and photographs showing flooding within the Unit.
On the lists, the court found a fundamental evidential gap. While the Final List purported to record quantities of “damaged” goods, it was based on the Initial List, which in turn was based on the Draft List and a joint inspection. Yet the court observed that ST Building did not provide any basis—within the lists or elsewhere—to show that its goods were actually “damaged” or “wet” in the quantities recorded. The court described the process of inspection in compiling the lists as “a mystery”. In particular, it was unclear whether ST Building had performed any visual and/or physical inspection before concluding that each quantity of goods was “damaged” or “wet”.
The court also scrutinised the photographs. Many goods were wrapped in packaging, film wrap, and/or polyethylene (“PE”) sheets at the time of the incident. ST Building’s evidence included testimony that if there was water “on the outside” of wrapped goods, it “definitely means whatever is inside is damaged”. The court accepted that in some cases, one could infer internal damage without removing wrapping—especially where wrapping is transparent and water marks are visible. However, the court held that ST Building failed to show with specificity that it had properly inspected the wrapped goods. The court noted the absence of evidence on (a) the quantities of goods that were wrapped; (b) whether the state of the wrapping allowed one to ascertain that goods inside were wet without removing wrapping; and (c) if not, whether wrapping was removed before concluding internal damage.
Further, the court considered witness evidence and omissions. The person who prepared the Initial and Final Lists, ST Building’s financial manager, was not called. ST Building’s managing director, Mr Lee Yong Seng, testified that he had “checked” the lists but did not provide details of how he did so. As for McLarens, although ST Building asserted that McLarens had “verified” the quantities during the joint inspection, the court found that the evidence of verification was thin. The plaintiff did not call McLarens to explain what was done during the inspection. ST Building’s explanation—that there was “simply no need” because the evidence already showed McLarens conducted a physical inspection—was rejected as insufficient. The “evidence” was merely an email exchange, which did not describe what McLarens actually did during the joint inspection.
In light of these deficiencies, the court was not satisfied that ST Building’s goods were actually damaged or wet in the quantities recorded in the Initial and Final Lists. This conclusion was decisive for the primary head of loss. The court’s approach reflects a strict evidential standard in damages assessment: where the plaintiff’s claimed quantum depends on the reliability of a damage inventory, the plaintiff must show how that inventory was produced and why it is trustworthy.
Even if the photographs showed that some goods had been wet, the court held that the photographs did not assist in determining the disputed quantities and extent of wetting. Many photographs depicted goods stacked on pallets, with only bottom pallets and goods in direct contact with water. Moreover, the plaintiff did not specifically link photographs to particular “damaged” items or to specific quantities recorded in the lists. As a result, the photographs could not bridge the evidential gap between “some wetting occurred” and “all goods in the lists were wet/damaged to the extent claimed”.
The supplier letters were also treated with caution. The court noted that the suppliers’ replies were based on the premise that the goods supplied had actually been exposed to water. But, save for one supplier (Promat Building System, as referenced in the truncated extract), the court found that the letters did not adequately establish that the goods were in fact exposed to water in the quantities claimed. This is a critical analytical point: expert reports and documentary assurances about consequences of exposure do not prove exposure itself. The plaintiff still had to prove the factual premise—actual wetting/damage—before the consequential valuation could be accepted.
Accordingly, the court held that ST Building failed to discharge its burden of proving the quantum of damage caused to its goods. Because the other heads of loss depended “to some extent” on the central question, the failure on the primary damage inventory undermined the overall damages claim.
What Was the Outcome?
Although FortyTwo conceded liability and interlocutory judgment was entered in ST Building’s favour, the High Court’s assessment judgment turned against ST Building on the evidential basis for its claimed quantum. The court was not satisfied that ST Building proved that its goods were damaged or wet in the quantities recorded in the Initial and Final Lists, and therefore did not accept the plaintiff’s valuation approach premised on “no residual market value” for all listed items.
Practically, this meant that ST Building could not recover the claimed sum of $559,500.96 (or at least not on the pleaded basis), because the largest component—loss in respect of damaged goods—was not established on a balance of probabilities. The court’s reasoning underscores that damages assessment is not a mere arithmetic exercise once liability is conceded; it requires credible proof of both factual damage and its monetary extent.
Why Does This Case Matter?
This case is significant for practitioners because it illustrates how Singapore courts approach damages assessment where the plaintiff’s claim depends on an inventory of damaged goods. Even where a loss adjuster and documentary materials exist, the court will scrutinise whether the plaintiff has shown how the inventory was compiled, what inspections were performed, and whether the evidence can reliably connect particular items and quantities to the incident. The decision is a reminder that evidential gaps cannot be cured by assumptions or by general statements that goods exposed to moisture are likely to be damaged.
From a litigation strategy perspective, ST Building’s failure to call key witnesses (including the person who prepared the lists and McLarens) and the lack of specificity linking photographs to particular items were central to the court’s conclusion. For claimants, this highlights the importance of contemporaneous documentation, clear inspection protocols, and witness testimony that explains the methodology used to determine damage and quantities. For defendants, it demonstrates that challenging the factual premise of claimed quantum—rather than merely disputing valuation—can be decisive.
Finally, the case reinforces the general principle that damages in tort aim at restitutionary equivalence (placing the plaintiff in the position it would have been in absent the tort), but that equivalence must be grounded in proof. Where the plaintiff cannot establish the extent of damage, the court will not award damages based on unverified or insufficiently supported inventories, even if liability is conceded.
Legislation Referenced
- Civil Law Act (Singapore) — referenced as part of the statutory framework for tort damages (as indicated in the metadata provided)
Cases Cited
- Robertson Quay Investment Pte Ltd v Steen Consultants Pte Ltd and another [2008] 2 SLR(R) 623
Source Documents
This article analyses [2020] SGHC 184 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.