KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 — Just days before the two-year deadline for lawsuits, the wife and two children of a passenger onboard then Malaysian Airline System Berhad’s (MAS) Flight MH370 sued the airline.
The suit was filed today at the High Court here by then-40-year-old Koh Tiong Meng’s family.
Koh’s 37-year-old wife who is working as a clerk filed the suit, while the 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son filed the suit through their mother. Their names were not revealed to the media due to privacy concerns.
Datuk Arunan Selvaraj, the family’s lawyer, said the lawsuit was filed after consent was obtained from the administrator of MAS, which has seen its assets and operations transferred to Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) in a recent restructuring exercise.
“We wrote in for consent, they wrote back to us, (with) several conditions, one of the conditions is we cannot pursue against any other party except MAS,” he said when highlighting the requirement to seek consent for lawsuits after the Malaysian Airline System Berhad (Administration) Act 2015 came into place.
According to the statement of claim, Koh’s family is suing MAS for breach of contract and breach of duty of care to provide an airworthy aircraft and take all due measures to ensure a safe flight.
Among other things, they are claiming damages for loss of support and aggravated damages for injured feelings and emotions, mental distress and pain suffered over the loss of Koh.
Arunan said no compensation amount was specified in their claim, as the damages will be assessed by the courts by taking into account various factors such as his client’s income and whether she was working.
At the time of the flight, Koh was earning RM6,000 per month as a manager in a firm, and had his own business, which generated RM16,710 and RM8,030 in January and February 2014.
The deadline for families to file for legal claims over the loss of their loved ones on Flight MH370 will expire on the flight’s second anniversary on March 8, next week.
Arunan said the deadline under the Montreal Convention 1999 applies only to lawsuits against the airline and the next of kin of MH370 passengers are free to file legal claims against other parties such as the Malaysian government beyond the date.
“But the deadline is very important, because if we missed the deadline, limitation sets in,” he said, confirming it would be impossible to file and pursue lawsuits against MAS over flight MH370 after March 8.
Arunan said he will be meeting about 10 clients who were related to MH370 passengers this Saturday, but added that they may not necessarily be filing lawsuits.
“Some of them are already negotiating directly with MAS; some are going through us, we are negotiating; and some of them are not interested anymore in pursuing the matter, all they want is just to move on, so if at all the compensation is reasonable, I think they will accept,” said the lawyer, who has acted for around 10 to 15 clients in relation to flight MH370.
His clients will be joining this Sunday’s remembrance event at Publika for the Beijing-Kuala Lumpur flight, titled: “Search 2.0: Re-investigate, Re-evaluate, Re-start”.
On January 29, 2015, Malaysia said that Flight MH370 was declared an accident under international aviation regulations, and all 239 people on board the flight were presumed dead.
