AXA Insurance Singapore Pte Ltd v Chandran s/o Natesan

• Judgment Date: 21 August 2013
• Date: 21 August 2013
• Docket Number: Suit No 576 of 2013 (Summons No 3820 of 2013)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)

AXA Insurance Singapore Pte Ltd

Plaintiff

and

Chandran s/o Natesan

Defendant

[2013] SGHC 158

Choo Han Teck J

Suit No 576 of 2013 (Summons No 3820 of 2013)

High Court

Tort—Nuisance—Private nuisance—Defendant sent abusive e-mails and repeatedly called plaintiff insurance company—Final judgment sought for claim of private nuisance or, alternatively, tort of harassment—Defendant unrepresented and absent—Whether final judgment could be entered

This was a dispute arising between the plaintiff insurance company and the defendant policy holder. The defendant was involved in a road accident on 8 June 2013 and made a claim on his policy on 12 June 2013. When he did not receive payment under his policy, the defendant began to ‘persistently send e-mails and make phone calls to the plaintiff's employees and external lawyers’. Some of these e-mails were abusive. The plaintiff insurance company sought an injunction against the defendant to restrain him from ‘harassing, alarming, distressing the employees, directors, partners, servants and agents of the plaintiff and the plaintiff's professional advisers’. An ex parte injunction on an urgent basis was obtained on 1 July 2013. The plaintiff applied for final judgment to be entered on 1 August 2013. The plaintiff's claim was based on the tort of nuisance, and alternatively, the tort of harassment. The defendant was unrepresented and absent. Counsel for the plaintiff produced a letter purporting to show the defendant's consent to final judgment being entered.

Held, dismissing the application:

(1) The defendant's letter indicated a willingness to conform to the terms set out in the plaintiff's counsel's letter, but also disputed other parts of that same letter. His consent to final judgment being entered against him was thus not clear and unequivocal and he could not be said to have consented to final judgment: at [5] .

(2) The tort of nuisance did not apply as that tort only applied to situations where the acts of nuisance affected the enjoyment of the plaintiff's land. The defendant's acts were only alleged to cause discomfort to persons who were non-occupiers and was beyond the scope of the tort of nuisance: at [6] .

(3) The tort of harassment was not pleaded as a cause of action and the plaintiff did not show whether it was entitled to sue on behalf of its employees. That claim had to also fail: at [6] .

[Observation: The court observed that there was no basis or principle upon which a tort of harassment was founded. The court further observed that it was the role of Parliament, and not the courts, to determine whether the law should be used to govern annoyance caused by means of letters, e-mails, and telephone messages, and whether ss 13 A and 13 B of the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act (Cap 184, 1997 Rev Ed) ought to be expanded to allow a claim for civil remedies. It was also for Parliament to determine what the nature and extent of such remedies should be. By allowing litigants to sue when they feel harassed when there was no direct contact nor proof of damage, the court might be creating a blockbuster tort which would have unpredictable consequences, some of which might not be desirable: at [8] and [10] .]

Arul Chandran v Gartshore [2000] 1 SLR (R) 436; [2000] 2 SLR 446 (refd)

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (refd)

Hunter v Canary Wharf Ltd [1997] AC 655 (refd)

Janvier v Sweeney [1919] 2 KB 316 (refd)

Khorasandjian v Bush [1993] QB 727 (refd)

Malcomson Nicholas Hugh Bertram v Mehta Naresh Kumar [2001] 3 SLR (R) 379; [2001] 4 SLR 454 (refd)

Tee Yok Kiat v Pang Min Seng [2013] SGCA 9 (refd)

Wilkinson v Downton [1897] 2 QB 57 (refd)

Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act (Cap 184, 1997 Rev Ed) ss 13 A, 13 B

K Muralidharan Pillai (Rajah & Tann LLP) for plaintiff

Defendant unrepresented and absent.

Judgment reserved.

Choo Han Teck J

1 The plaintiff is a company incorporated in Singapore and carries on the business of general insurance. The defendant held a motor vehicle insurance policy (‘the Policy’) in respect of his motorcycle with the licence plate number FB 7639 B (‘Vehicle’). The Policy was issued by the plaintiff. He purchased the policy from the plaintiff around December 2012 to cover the Vehicle from 23 November 2012 to 22 November 2013. The defendant was involved in a road accident along Dunearn Road on 8 June 2013 in which his motorcycle was hit from behind. He made a claim on his policy on 12 June 2013.

2 The plaintiff's statement of claim averred that after the defendant filed his claim under the policy, he began to ‘persistently send emails and make phone calls to the plaintiff's employees and external lawyers’. The plaintiff claimed that ‘on a number of these occasions the defendant used vulgar and threatening language’. It claimed that the defendant ‘embarked on a course of conduct by his email and phone calls, which was sufficiently repetitive in nature, such as to cause, and which he ought reasonably to know would cause worry, emotional distress or annoyance to the plaintiff's employees and advisors’.

3 The plaintiff alleged that between 13 to 25 June 2013 (nine working days), the defendant sent 19 e-mails to the plaintiff's employees and made at least seven phone calls to them; in a number of those calls vulgar and abusive language was used. The e-mails and calls were made not to a single person but to several different persons in the plaintiff's employ, including: Ong Hui Fang, a customer service executive; Valencia Lee, a manager in the Motor Claims Department; Charlie Neo, an associate director; Dominic Ho, an assistant manager; Doina Palici-Chehab, the chief executive officer; Elaine Lee, a secretary; members of the plaintiff's claims service team; and various others.

4 On 21 June 2013, Willy Tay, solicitors for the plaintiff at the time, wrote to the defendant telling him to stop the abusive language in his e-mail to the plaintiff and that all correspondence henceforth should be sent to Willy Tay's firm Ari, Goh & Partners. I should pause to point out that the subject matter that led to Willy Tay's letter of 21 June 2013 was the claim by the defendant for payment of a...