KUALA LUMPUR: A pupil whose right leg was fractured after his KAFA teacher lifted and slammed him onto a chair has been awarded RM30,000 in damages after the Kuala Terengganu High Court overturned the dismissal of his lawsuit.
Judge Yusrin Faidz Yusoff held teacher Ahmad Mursyidin Abdullah liable for assault and battery, while finding his employer, Yayasan Islam Terengganu, vicariously liable for his actions.
The judge also ordered the defendants to pay RM17,000 in costs for the appeal and proceedings before the Sessions Court.
The boy, who was nine at the time of the incident, filed the suit through his mother.
In written grounds dated Nov 9, Yusrin Faidz said the Sessions Court had erred in assessing the eyewitness and medical evidence.
“The teacher intentionally lifted the plaintiff and slammed him onto the chair with force, without the plaintiff’s consent, thereby causing physical contact and injury,” he said.
The incident occurred during a KAFA class at SK Tasek, Marang, about 3.30pm on July 6, 2022.
The boy claimed that the teacher approached him while he was playing at the back of the classroom, lifted him and slammed him onto a chair while his leg was folded.
Medical examinations revealed a closed spiral fracture of his right tibia.
The defendants denied the assault, maintaining that the boy fell while performing taekwondo movements and that the teacher merely lifted him and placed him carefully onto a chair.
However, Yusrin Faidz found that two classmates had consistently testified that they saw the teacher lift and slam the boy onto the chair.
He said the Sessions Court’s finding that the witnesses had been influenced by the boy’s mother was speculative and unsupported by evidence.
The suggestion that they had been coached was never put to them during cross-examination, and both maintained their accounts without material contradictions.
“Furthermore, the fact that two witnesses give similar accounts of the same event does not, without more, justify an inference of coaching,” he said.
The judge also found that the Sessions Court had improperly rejected an orthopaedic specialist’s unchallenged evidence that the injury was consistent with an impact or strike to the leg.
Instead, the lower court relied on its own interpretation of medical literature included in the defendants’ bundle of authorities.
The articles had not been introduced through a witness, marked as exhibits or subjected to cross-examination.
Yusrin Faidz said the Sessions Court had improperly assumed the role of a medical expert.
On the foundation’s liability, he said the teacher’s duties included maintaining discipline and supervising pupils.
Although the physical intervention was excessive and wrongful, it was sufficiently connected to those duties to hold his employer liable.
However, the judge rejected the boy’s RM410,000 claim as disproportionate, noting that the fracture had healed fully without permanent disability, limb shortening or lasting impairment.
He also declined to award aggravated and exemplary damages, finding that the evidence did not establish circumstances warranting either award.
Mohammad Rafaei Adnan, Mohd Hazwan Hamidun and Alif Danial Ahmad Shahrulnizam represented the boy, while Saiffuddin Othman and Yuhana Junaidi appeared for the defendants.