Chua Choon Lim Robert v MN Swami and Others

JurisdictionSingapore
JudgeAmarjeet Singh JC
Judgment Date19 July 2000
Neutral Citation[2000] SGHC 144
Docket NumberSuit No 223 of 2000/R (Registrar's
Date19 July 2000
Year2000
Published date19 September 2003
Plaintiff CounselAppellant in person
Citation[2000] SGHC 144
Defendant CounselCheah Kok Lim (Michael Khoo & Partners),Yip Shee Yin (Yeo-Leong & Peh),Fifth respondent in person,KH Imran (Tan Rajah & Cheah),Ashok Kumar and Edwin Tong (Allen & Gledhill),Michael Moey (Moey & Yuen),Rodney Keong (Bih Li & Lee)
CourtHigh Court (Singapore)
Subject MatterAbuse of process of court,Limitation Act (Cap 163),O 18 r 19 Rules of Court,Striking out,Whether actions against defendants disclosing no reasonable cause of action, vexatious, or abuse of process of court,Res judicata,Plaintiff suing defendants despite undertaking to court not to commence actions,Whether Supreme Court has inherent jurisdiction to do so,Whether doctrine applies,Order prohibiting plaintiff from recommencing litigation without leave of court,Limitation of actions,Judgments and orders,Civil Procedure

: Introduction

The appellant/plaintiff filed the writ of summons herein together with a statement of claim on 24 May 2000.
He thereafter filed an amended statement of claim and applied for summary judgment against all the respondents/defendants. I shall refer to the parties singly as the plaintiff and the respective defendant as numbered.

All the defendants applied to have the plaintiff`s action struck off or dismissed under O 18 r 19 of the Rules of Court in that the action variously disclosed no reasonable cause of action, was vexatious and/or otherwise an abuse of the process of court.


The plaintiff was a Divisional Sales Manager of Great Eastern Life Assurance Company Ltd (`the company`) having risen from the post of a trainee agent in April 1975.
He resigned from his post on 15 September 1980. He claimed he had been unemployed since then.

The first defendant is an advocate and solicitor practising under the name and style of M/s MN Swami & Yap.


The second defendant was a former Group Sales Manager of the company.


The third defendant is an advocate and solicitor practising under the name and style of Sam & Wijaya.


The fourth defendant was a former agency manager of the company.


The fifth defendant Heng Keng Leng was a Senior Inspector of Agents of the company whose superior was the plaintiff.


The sixth defendant Gay Kok Peng was the Group Sales Manager of the company and immediate superior of the plaintiff.


The seventh defendant Ng Yik Soon Richard was a Senior Inspector of Agents of the company in August 1979 and was the immediate superior of Heng.


The eighth defendants are a firm of advocates and solicitors.


The ninth defendant is the company hereinbefore mentioned.


All the parties were represented by counsel before me except for the plaintiff and the fifth defendant who appeared in person.


The plaintiff`s application for summary judgment against all the defendants in the above action was dismissed by James KY Leong, the senior assistant registrar (`SAR`).


The SAR at the hearing instead made an order dismissing the plaintiff`s action pursuant to an application made by all defendants under O 18 r 19 of the Rules of Court.


The SAR further ordered:

the plaintiff is not allowed without the leave of the court to issue or commence any legal proceedings pertaining or relating to Suit 223/2000/R, Suit 7228/85 and CA 10/92 and the issues and the parties set out therein and in case the plaintiff should without such leave issue or commence any such legal proceedings the defendants are not to attend or otherwise deal with such legal proceedings unless the court on the return thereof shall so direct and unless the court shall think fit to give such directions, the legal proceedings shall be summarily dismissed without being heard. For the avoidance of doubt, this order shall not apply to any appeal filed against these orders herein.



The plaintiff was finally ordered to pay fixed costs to the defendants.


The plaintiff appealed herein against all the above orders of the SAR.


I affirmed the orders of the SAR and dismissed the plaintiff`s appeal against all the defendants in respect of and concerning all the orders.


Before I deal with the grounds of my decision, I shall briefly set out the background of the case which had its genesis some 20 years ago.


Background

Suit 7228/85

The plaintiff had various differences in 1979 and 1980 with some of his supervisors and subordinates who were all sales agents.
As stated earlier, he resigned from the company on 15 September 1980. Belatedly, in 1985 he brought an action in the High Court in Suit 7228/85 through the first defendant and his firm of solicitors against three fellow sales employees of the company, the fifth, sixth and seventh defendants herein.

The fifth defendant was unrepresented and failed to enter an appearance.
An interlocutory judgment in default was obtained against him by the plaintiff`s solicitors in 1985 with damages to be assessed. However, damages had never been assessed.

The action was heard by LP Thean J (as he then was) in May 1991 and again in early January and upon its conclusion on seventh January 1992, the learned judge dismissed the plaintiff`s action with costs.
LP Thean J delivered his grounds of judgment on 16 June 1992 and the thrust of the plaintiff`s action was summarised in LP Thean J`s judgment as follows:

In April 1979, differences between the plaintiff and his group of inspectors and senior inspectors of agents arose. On 26 April 1979, six of them jointly wrote a letter to the development manager of the company applying for a transfer of themselves and their agents from the plaintiff`s organisation to Mohamed Amin`s organisation; the latter at that time was a group sales manager. This application was refused as it was the established practice of the company that no transfer of inspector and his agents from one group to another would be entertained unless the immediate superior of that group consented. In that instance the plaintiff was the immediate superior of the signatories who were senior inspectors of agents and he had not given his consent. However, the differences between the plaintiff and Heng became more acute, and apparently they could not work together; Heng was rebellious, not productive as an organiser and a difficult person to deal with. As a result, the plaintiff and Gay had a discussion on several occasions, and eventually, according to Gay, the plaintiff consented to Heng being transferred out of his group to the company`s direct group. The plaintiff, however, said he did not consent to Heng`s transfer. Ng was then working directly under Heng, and on learning that Heng would be transferred out of the plaintiff`s group, he requested for a transfer. These transfers were accordingly effected in July 1979 or thereabout.

The plaintiff complained that as a result of these transfers, he was deprived of the overriding commission and profits from the sales procured by Heng and Ng and their agents and these transfers were brought about by or through the conspiracy of three of them, Gay, Heng and Ng. He further complained that after the transfers were effected he was harassed by Gay in pursuance of the conspiracy so much so that he was pressurised to leave the company. After he had left the company, he instituted this action against the three of them claiming damages for conspiracy with intent to injure him in the way of his trade or business. Heng did not defend the action, but the claim was resisted by Gay and Ng.



The learned judge`s conclusion and findings were as follows:

To succeed on his claim, the plaintiff has to establish, inter alia, that the defendants at the material time had an agreement or understanding between them and acted in pursuance thereof to injure him. On the evidence before me, there was really no such agreement or understanding or anything to suggest that the defendants were at the material time acting in concert to injure him.

...

On the evidence, it was clear that Gay did not at any time agree to Heng being transferred to Mohamed Amin`s group. I accepted Gay`s evidence that the plaintiff had consented to Heng`s transfer to the company`s direct group. It was plain to me that the plaintiff and Heng could not get on with each other and had to part company. I also accepted Gay`s evidence and Ng`s evidence that Ng on his own volition requested for a transfer to Gay`s group and that only Heng`s consent was required in accordance with the company`s procedure, and Heng did give his consent. There was no evidence that Gay instigated Ng to apply for the transfer. All this evidence was borne out by or was consistent with the contemporary documents in existence.

The transfer of Heng to the company`s direct group and the transfer of Ng to the group of Gay were effected in July 1979 or thereabout. The evidence showed that these transfers were effected in accordance with the procedure of the company. There was no evidence that these transfers were effected pursuant to any agreement or understanding at all between the three defendants with the intent to injure the plaintiff. In fact, there was no evidence of any agreement or understanding existing between them. The plaintiff resigned from the company in September 1980 which was more than one year after the transfers. There was also no evidence that after the transfers Gay caused or procured members of his group to be disrespectful to the plaintiff or to utter foul or obscene language directed to the plaintiff, or that Gay in any other way exerted pressure on the plaintiff to resign from the company. In all probability, the reason for the plaintiff`s resignation from the company was that he could not get along with Gay, his immediate superior, at that time.

Apart from the bare allegations of the plaintiff, there was not a shred of evidence on which he could rely in support of his claim. The claim of the plaintiff for damages for conspiracy was obviously unsustainable and it was therefore dismissed. [Emphasis added.]



CA 10/92

The plaintiff`s appeal in Suit 7228/85 filed on 2 February 1992 was numbered CA 10/92.


After receipt of the grounds of judgment in the said Suit 7228/85, the plaintiff failed to file his petition of appeal.
The appeal thereafter lapsed as is evidenced by a letter from the Registry of the High Court to the plaintiff dated 4 July 1992 which stated:

the time for filing petition of appeal has expired and the appeal is now deemed to have been withdrawn pursuant to O 57 r 6(3) of the Rules of the Supreme Court 1970.



The plaintiff was adjudged a bankrupt in Bankruptcy 1523/94 being unable to pay the costs of $47,066.36 to the sixth and seventh defendants.
He was discharged from his bankruptcy on or about 23 April 1999.

About three years later under the heading CA 10/92, the plaintiff attempted to restore his appeal by way of notice of motion against the fifth, sixth and seventh
...

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7 cases
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    • Singapore
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    • 28 Diciembre 2007
    ...order which embraces the institution of new proceedings. 131 It is true that in the Singapore case of Chua Choon Lim Robert v M N Swami [2000] 4 SLR 494, Amarjeet Singh JC ruled that the High Court has the power under its inherent jurisdiction to make a restraining order in the context of c......
  • Manas Kumar Ghosh v MSI Ship Management Pte Ltd
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    ...1 WLR 1482 (refd) Bunga Melati 5, The [2012] 4 SLR 546 (refd) Chem Orchid, The [2016] 2 SLR 50 (refd) Chua Choon Lim Robert v MN Swami [2000] 2 SLR(R) 589; [2000] 4 SLR 494 (folld) Gabriel Peter & Partners v Wee Chong Jin [1997] 3 SLR(R) 649; [1998] 1 SLR 374 (refd) Goh Nellie v Goh Lian Te......
  • Ng Yat Chi v Max Share Ltd And Another
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    • Court of Final Appeal (Hong Kong)
    • 20 Enero 2005
    ...(1974) 131 CLR 311; New Zealand: Stewart v Auckland Transport Board [1951] NZLR 576; and Singapore: Chua Choon Lim Robert v MN Swami [2000] 4 SLR 494. The courts in some Canadian provinces appear to be the exception: see Shaward v Shaward (1988) 8 ACWS (3d) 412 (Manitoba); Midwest Property ......
  • Tey Tsun Hang v AG
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    • High Court (Singapore)
    • 1 Diciembre 2014
    ...1 SLR 582 (refd) Chiu Teng @ Kallang Pte Ltd v Singapore Land Authority [2014] 1 SLR 1047 (refd) Chua Choon Lim Robert v MN Swami [2000] 2 SLR (R) 589; [2000] 4 SLR 494 (refd) Gabriel Peter & Partners v Wee Chong Jin [1997] 3 SLR (R) 649; [1998] 1 SLR 374 (folld) Jeyaretnam Kenneth Andrew v......
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2 books & journal articles
  • Civil Procedure
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2000, December 2000
    • 1 Diciembre 2000
    ...has the inherent jurisdiction to make an order preventing a party from litigating repeatedly. In Chua Choon Lim Robert v M N Swami & Ors[2000] 4 SLR 494, the High Court observed that it had the inherent jurisdiction to prevent the initiation of civil proceedings which are vexatious, frivolo......
  • Civil Procedure
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2014, December 2014
    • 1 Diciembre 2014
    ...1 AC 835 at 862. Thirdly, a delay in bringing proceedings may constitute an abuse of process: Chua Choon Lim Robert v MN Swani[2000] 2 SLR(R) 589 at [42], citing Ronex Properties Ltd v John Laing Construction Ltd[1983] 1 QB 398. 8.92 In Tey Tsun Hang, the court reasoned that s 39A of the Im......

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