Milk Lover's Ruined Food Case Against CLP Goes Ahead

A man who is claiming more than HK$6,500 in compensation for milk and food spoiled in a massive power blackout will be allowed to take his case against power giant CLP to a full hearing, the Small Claims Tribunal ruled on Thursday.

The tribunal rejected an application from CLP to kick out the case, which relates to a power cut in June last year, when a fire at a cable bridge in Yuen Long plunged some 160,000 households in the northwestern New Territories into darkness for hours.

Among those affected was Lo Po-sang, a Tin Shui Wai resident, who filed the writ against the power company back in August. He accuses CLP of failing to resume the power supply within a reasonable time, causing “irreversible damage” to his food.

Lo's writ lists items worth around HK$6,500 that he says went bad during the outage. It includes 10 cartons of milk each weighing 1.5 litre, seven boxes of ice cream, and various kinds of seafood, including a snow crab, whelks, urchins, scallops and black tiger prawns.

CLP had asked the tribunal to kick out the writ, saying Lo's claims were “frivolous and vexatious" and lacked legal support.

The power giant also questioned whether the photos of the food had dates on and whether the food went bad because of the power outages.

Handing down his judgment on Thursday, deputy adjudicator Avery Chan ruled against CLP, saying that the outage would no doubt have affected residents given that CLP is the sole power supplier in the New Territories.

Chan added that it's "arguable" whether the power giant owed and breached a duty of care, and whether negligence is involved in the incident.

The case has been adjourned to August 28.

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