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Max Share Ltd And Another v Ng Yat Chi

Judgment Cited authorities 3 Cited in Precedent Map Related
Vincent
Judgment Date14 January 1998
Year1998
Citation[1998] 1 HKLRD 237;(1997-1998) 1 HKCFAR 72
Judgement NumberFACV3/1997
Subject MatterFinal Appeal (Civil)
CourtCourt of Final Appeal (Hong Kong)
FACV000003/1997 MAX SHARE LTD AND ANOTHER v. NG YAT CHI

FACV No. 3 of 1997

IN THE COURT OF FINAL APPEAL OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

FINAL APPEAL NO. 3 OF 1997 (CIVIL)

(ON APPEAL FROM CACV No. 252 OF 1996)

_____________________

Between
MAX SHARE LIMITED 1st Appellant
CHINA RESOURCES (HOLDINGS)
COMPANY LIMITED		 2nd Appellant
AND
NG YAT CHI Respondent

_____________________

Coram: Chief Justice Li, Mr Justice Bokhary, P.J. and Mr Justice Nazareth, NPJ

Date of Hearing: 14 January 1998

Date of Judgment: 14 January 1998

_________________________

D E T E R M I N A T I O N

_________________________

Mr Justice Bokhary, P.J.:

1. This is the Appeal Committee's determination.

2. On 16 October 1997 we granted the appellants leave to appeal. They filed their Case on 31 December 1997.

3. Now by a summons dated 6 January 1998 the respondent seeks the setting-aside of the appellants' Case plus consequential relief.

4. Such setting-aside is sought on two grounds. The first is that, so the respondent contends, the appellants' Case fails to deal with issues which we, in our Determination of 16 October 1997 granting leave to appeal, said the parties would have to address. As to this ground, we say no more than that the appellants' Case has no shortcoming in that regard such as would warrant any setting-aside or similar sanction.

5. The second ground is that, so the respondent contends, the appellants' Case fails to comply with rule 27(2) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Rules, which provides that:

"The Case shall be signed by the counsel for the party or the party himself."

6. In the present case, the appellants' leading and junior counsel have put their manuscript signatures to the draft Case which they settled. By reason of logistical difficulties, they happened to have put their manuscript signatures to the draft after the Case prepared from it was filed and served. Their printed names appear at the end of the copies of the appellants' Case which have been filed and served.

7. That, the respondent argues, is insufficient to comply with rule 27(2). He argues that rule 27(2) requires that counsel put their manuscript signatures to the copies of the Case filed. We pause to observe that rule 25(1) requires an appellant to file six copies of his Case, while rule 25(2) requires a respondent likewise to file six copies of his Case.

8. What the word "signed" means depends on the context in which it appears. There are circumstances in which a person may sign a document through the agency of another. Indeed, as Romer LJ said in London County Council v. Agricultural Food Products Ltd. [1955] 2 QB 218 at pp223-224: "It is established ... as a general proposition that at common law a person sufficiently 'signs' a document if it is signed in his name and with his authority by somebody else". So where a statute requires that a document be signed, it is a question of construction as to whether the statute displaces the common law rule and, in the words of Quain, J. in R. v. Kent Justices (1873) LR 8QB 305 at p.307, "makes a personal signature indispensable".

9. Signing a document is not necessarily confined to putting one's manuscript signature to that document. For example, it was held by the Court of Appeal in England in Goodman v. J Eban Ltd. [1954] 1 QB 550 that a bill of costs was duly "signed" when accompanied by a letter to which the solicitor had applied a rubber stamp bearing a facsimile of his signature.

10. In certain circumstances, even the printing on a document of a person's name by another person satisfies a requirement that the document be signed by the former. And that has been established in regard to pleadings, which is a context closely analogous to the one with which we are concerned.

11. Order 18, rule 6(5) of the Rules of the High Court here (which is identical...

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