Govt files action to strike out suit by family of Dutch model
Ivana Smit was found dead on the sixth floor of CapSquare Residences in Kuala Lumpur on Dec 7, 2017, after falling from a 20th floor condominium unit. (Instagram pic)
PETALING JAYA: Putrajaya has filed an application to strike out a suit brought by the family of the late Dutch model, Ivana Smit, for negligence, a lawyer for the plaintiff said.
SN Nair said the application was filed on March 4, a month after the Court of Appeal reinstated a suit that was struck out by a High Court judge of his own volition.
According to the notice of application, the government has taken the position that the suit did not clearly disclose a reasonable cause of action.
The government pleads that the suit is vexatious, frivolous and an abuse of the court process.
It also wants the hearing of the suit to be suspended pending the outcome of the striking-out application that will be heard on June 17.
Police officer Faizal Abdullah, one of the defendants cited in the action, has filed an affidavit in support of the suit to be annulled.
Nair said the application is absurd because the Court of Appeal made a finding that the writ should not have been struck out.
“Having known this fact, the government filed the striking-out application on similar grounds as the High Court,” he said.
On Feb 7, a three-member Court of Appeal bench chaired by Yaacob Md Sam ruled that there was an appealable error by the High Court.
In her grounds of appeal, Smit’s mother Christina Carolina Gerarda Johanna Verstappen said judge Akhtar Tahir had annulled the suit as the Rules of Court 2012 had not been complied with.
On April 21 last year, Akhtar had struck out the claim but ruled that Verstappen had the liberty to file a fresh suit.
In her appeal, Verstappen also said she could not file a new suit as the three-year limitation period against the government had set in when Akhtar made his ruling.
Verstappen, who filed the suit in 2020, named the government, the police and Faizal as defendants.
She claimed they had failed to determine the cause of her daughter’s death.
Smit, then aged 18, was found dead on the sixth floor of CapSquare Residences here on Dec 7, 2017, after falling from the 20th-floor condominium unit owned by American couple Alex Johnson and Luna Almazkyzy.
An inquest was held in 2018 to determine the cause of Smit’s death, and the coroner’s court returned a misadventure verdict.
However, High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah later ruled that the death was caused by “persons known or unknown”. He reached the verdict after allowing the application by Smit’s family to review the coroner’s ruling.
PETALING JAYA: Putrajaya has filed an application to strike out a suit brought by the family of the late Dutch model, Ivana Smit, for negligence, a lawyer for the plaintiff said.
SN Nair said the application was filed on March 4, a month after the Court of Appeal reinstated a suit that was struck out by a High Court judge of his own volition.
According to the notice of application, the government has taken the position that the suit did not clearly disclose a reasonable cause of action.
The government pleads that the suit is vexatious, frivolous and an abuse of the court process.
It also wants the hearing of the suit to be suspended pending the outcome of the striking-out application that will be heard on June 17.
Police officer Faizal Abdullah, one of the defendants cited in the action, has filed an affidavit in support of the suit to be annulled.
Nair said the application is absurd because the Court of Appeal made a finding that the writ should not have been struck out.
“Having known this fact, the government filed the striking-out application on similar grounds as the High Court,” he said.
On Feb 7, a three-member Court of Appeal bench chaired by Yaacob Md Sam ruled that there was an appealable error by the High Court.
In her grounds of appeal, Smit’s mother Christina Carolina Gerarda Johanna Verstappen said judge Akhtar Tahir had annulled the suit as the Rules of Court 2012 had not been complied with.
On April 21 last year, Akhtar had struck out the claim but ruled that Verstappen had the liberty to file a fresh suit.
In her appeal, Verstappen also said she could not file a new suit as the three-year limitation period against the government had set in when Akhtar made his ruling.
Verstappen, who filed the suit in 2020, named the government, the police and Faizal as defendants.
She claimed they had failed to determine the cause of her daughter’s death.
Smit, then aged 18, was found dead on the sixth floor of CapSquare Residences here on Dec 7, 2017, after falling from the 20th-floor condominium unit owned by American couple Alex Johnson and Luna Almazkyzy.
An inquest was held in 2018 to determine the cause of Smit’s death, and the coroner’s court returned a misadventure verdict.
However, High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah later ruled that the death was caused by “persons known or unknown”. He reached the verdict after allowing the application by Smit’s family to review the coroner’s ruling.
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