KUALA LUMPUR: Genting Malaysia Bhd (Genting) was ordered to pay RM800,000 in damages to a Chinese national after it was found to be indirectly responsible for an employee's negligence that led to the murder of a hotel guest five years ago.
High Court Judicial Commissioner Datuk Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan made the award in favour of Wang Cuiling, who filed a negligence suit against Genting, First World Hotels & Resorts Sdn Bhd, and Nurul Suhaida Dahlan over the death of her husband, Xie Ning.
Suhaida, at the material time, was a hotel employee working in the housekeeping department.
According to the judgment, Xie checked into the hotel in Genting Highlands upon his arrival in the country on May 16, 2019.
The deceased had informed his wife via a messaging application that he visited the casino between June 7 and June 11, initially losing but later becoming a frequent winner.
The couple's last conversation was on June 11 where the deceased informed his wife that he had won money while gambling.
The plaintiff had contacted her friend who was at Genting Highlands to help search for her husband before the latter was found dead in his room lying on the bathroom floor.
The investigation revealed that the deceased had been tied up all over his body, and a postmortem confirmed that the cause of death was suffocation.
The plaintiff was informed by police that there were two suspects in the case – a Sri Lankan and a Pakistani who allegedly entered the deceased's room using Suhaida's key card to open the door.
The plaintiff claimed that Suhaida was negligent in allowing unauthorised persons to gain access to the deceased's room.
She also claimed that Genting and the hotel were vicariously liable for Suhaida's negligence and for their failure to exercise reasonable care to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the deceased as a hotel guest.
Meanwhile, the defendants argued that the plaintiff failed to prove that it was Suhaida who had given access to the deceased's room to the two suspects.
They claimed that no evidence was presented that Suhaida's access card was used to gain access to the deceased's room because no witness was called to testify to this act.
The defendants also claimed that the plaintiff failed to produce any closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of the incident during the trial.
They claimed that the police investigating officer also testified that CCTV located in the hallway opposite the deceased's room was blurred and this caused those appearing in it being unable to be identified.
The judge in his ruling said the hotel has a duty of care to ensure not only the comfort of the deceased but, more importantly, his safety as a guest.
"It is beyond dispute that the deceased was a guest at the hotel... the one that pays.
"In this regard, there is undoubtedly a duty of care that is being imposed upon the accommodation provider who is in this business for the purpose of making a profit.
"Suhaida, being a housekeeping assistant who was responsible for the maintenance of the cleanliness and organisation of guests' rooms must only confine the right of access to herself personally and not some other unauthorised parties.
"As for the CCTV footage, I find that the plaintiff has discharged her burden of proving both the existence of such CCTV despite its non-production and the role of Suhaida in this incident," he said in his judgment, which was uploaded on the judiciary department's website yesterday.
The court said there was sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Suhaida was involved in allowing unauthorised access to the deceased's room.
"Despite the absence of CCTV footage, this particular fact will remain unchanged as I am capable of assessing the facts on the basis of other credible evidence.
"Suhaida allowed someone who was not supposed to be in the deceased's room to enter twice on June 10 and June 12 using the key access card she had been issued in her capacity as an employee.