A three-member bench chaired by Justice See Mee Chun said there was no basis for the High Court’s award of RM500,000 in exemplary damages.

See also said the sum of RM200,000 awarded as general damages for pain and suffering was manifestly excessive.

She said the total damages of RM80,000 was a fair and reasonable sum.

“The respondents (the couple) had to produce evidence of depression and nervous shock. The court cannot simply take judicial notice in awarding such damages,” she said in allowing the hospital’s appeal on quantum.

Also on the bench hearing Hospital Pusrawi Sdn Bhd’s appeal were Justices Wong Kian Kheong and Ismail Brahim.

Counsel Razlan Hadri Zulkifli and Edmund Choi appeared for the hospital while Farhana Abdul Halim represented Nur Amalina Ismail and her husband, Syed Afi Said Merah.

On Jan 17, 2023, the Kuala Lumpur High Court awarded the couple RM500,000 in exemplary damages on top of RM200,000 for pain and suffering.

The hospital, the second defendant in the suit, had conceded liability.

The High Court judge ruled that there had been inordinate delay on the part of the doctor who attended to Nur Amalina, resulting in the infant suffering from complications leading to death.

The judge had said there was no necessity to adduce evidence to prove the pain, suffering and depression suffered as a result of the parents’ loss of their firstborn.

The trial judge had found that Nur Amalina suffered distress after her water bag burst on Nov 6, 2016, while at the hospital to deliver her baby.

He found that the doctor had left it to the hospital nurses to deal with Nur Amalina’s distress and only visited her the next day.

On examining Nur Amalina, the doctor directed that an emergency operation be carried out.

Upon delivery, it was discovered that the umbilical cord had strangled the child, resulting in the infant’s death.