Court says the payout covers the employer’s own legal bill too
Master Prisca Cheung ordered a resident to repay a property firm about HK$586,000 for assaulting its security guard, in a ruling dated 27 August 2026.
The District Court’s decision followed an assault at the residential building where the resident lived, after he confronted the guard about the air-conditioning in the building’s lobby on 7 June 2022. According to the judgment, the resident pushed the guard’s chest twice, hit his head once and punched his face several times. The guard was taken to Ruttonjee Hospital with tenderness to his head, face and upper back, bruising to his face and an abrasion to his lower lip. The resident later pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and was fined HK$5,000 in the criminal case; he admitted the facts and was convicted.
The guard brought employees’ compensation proceedings against his employer, Knight Frank (Services) Limited. By consent order, interlocutory judgment on liability was entered against the employer in January 2023, a standard outcome given that employers’ compensation liability does not depend on fault. A medical board later certified a 5% permanent loss of earning capacity, and the guard accepted sanctioned payments that brought his total compensation to about HK$315,000, made up of periodical payments, medical reimbursement and a lump sum.
The employer then sued the resident to recover that sum, plus the guard’s legal costs and its own legal costs in the compensation case, relying on section 25(1)(b) of the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance and the Civil Liability (Contribution) Ordinance. After the resident did not defend the claim, the court entered interlocutory judgment against him on liability in July 2025, leaving only the amount of damages to be assessed; he did not appear or file evidence at the assessment either.
Master Cheung noted that section 25(1)(b) allows an employer with no fault of its own to stand in its employee’s shoes and recover, from the person actually responsible, sums it was obliged to pay because of the accident. The provision covers “any sum which he is obliged to pay as a result of the accident”, and the court held that this extends beyond the compensation itself to the employee’s costs and the employer’s own legal costs, so long as those sums are properly incurred, not excessive, and within the amount the employee could have recovered from the wrongdoer at common law.
The court applied that test and allowed all three heads of claim in full: about HK$315,000 in compensation paid to the guard, about HK$142,000 for the guard’s legal costs in the compensation proceedings, and about HK$129,000 for the employer’s own legal costs in defending them, totalling roughly HK$586,000. The court found the sums were paid bona fide, properly referable to the accident and not excessive, and that the total did not exceed what the guard could have recovered directly from the resident. Interest was awarded on the full amount from the date of judgment until payment.
On costs of the assessment itself, the court held: “The Defendant must pay the Plaintiff’s costs of the assessment of damages.” Master Cheung summarily assessed those costs at HK$90,000.
In allowing the claim in full, Master Cheung held that the employer’s recovery under the ordinance was not confined to the HK$315,000 it paid the guard. It also extended to the legal costs both sides incurred in the compensation proceedings, because the total stayed within the damages the guard could have recovered directly from the resident, a limit the court found was not exceeded.
