Govinda s/o Aramvally Gopalan v Teoh Chooi Sian

JudgeTan May Tee
Judgment Date20 May 2020
Neutral Citation[2020] SGDC 126
Citation[2020] SGDC 126
CourtDistrict Court (Singapore)
Published date16 June 2020
Docket NumberDistrict Court Suit No 3479 of 2017
Plaintiff CounselMr R S Bajwa (Bajwa & Co)
Defendant CounselMs Megan Chia and Ms Jacqueline Gwee (Tan Rajah & Cheah)
Subject MatterTort,Defamation,Justification,Qualified privilege,Malice
Hearing Date06 February 2020,09 April 2020
District Judge Tan May Tee:

This is the second libel action brought by the plaintiff against the defendant arising out of their interactions with each other as council members of a management corporation. An order had been made for the suits to be heard one after the other, and both actions were fixed for trial before me.

The plaintiff is a senior lawyer, having been in practice for close to fifty years. The defendant is a homemaker. She previously worked as an auditor over 30 years ago but gave up her profession in 1991 to take care of her children.

Both parties reside at the condominium development called Casa Merah and being subsidiary proprietors, they are part of the condominium’s management corporation, The Management Corporation Strata Title No. 3534 (“MCST”) pursuant to the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act (Cap 30C) (“BMSMA”). At the MCST’s sixth Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) in April 2016, they were elected to serve on the MCST’s management council (“MC”). The plaintiff had in fact served as the honorary secretary (“Secretary”) from the fourth MC and he continued his appointment as Secretary in the fifth and sixth MC. Concurrently, he was also involved in the sub-committees overseeing the security and the landscaping of the condominium at the material time. The defendant’s involvement in the MC started from the sixth AGM. She had decided to step forward for election as she found the maintenance and security of the Casa Merah grounds to be on the decline and she wanted to do her part to improve the estate by participating in the MC.

In the first suit, DC/DC 594/2017 (“DC 594”), the plaintiff’ had accused the defendant of defaming him in an email that she had sent on 25 October 2016 to all the MC members and the managing agent of the condominium, Melana International Pte Ltd. I delivered judgment dismissing the plaintiff’s claim in a written judgment, Govinda s/o Aramvally Gopalan v Teoh Chooi Sian [2020] SGDC 111, issued on 30 April 2020. While I found that the defendant’s email was defamatory of the plaintiff – it imputed that the plaintiff was not suitable to be the Secretary and should retire since he was incapable of handling the responsibility of ensuring that the minutes of MC meetings were accurate – I also found for the defendant on her defences of justification and qualified privilege. In my assessment of the evidence in DC 594, the malice allegations levelled by the plaintiff were not proven. They did not cross the high threshold necessary to negate the protection of qualified privilege accorded to the defendant in the publication of her defamatory email.

Among the matters pleaded1 by the plaintiff as malice in DC 594 was the complaint that the defendant had made about the plaintiff’s conduct to the Law Society of Singapore (“Law Society”) on 1 December 2016 (“the Complaint”) under s 85(1) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161) (“the LPA”). The Complaint was considered and eventually dismissed by the Law Society’s Review Committee constituted under s 85(6) of the LPA.

The plaintiff’s second libel action in this suit is founded on the contents of the Complaint.

Background

The parties first encountered each other at the AGM on 16 April 2016. During the AGM, the defendant had raised queries about the MCST’s then ongoing litigation with its former managing agent, Knight Frank Estate Management Pte Ltd (“Knight Frank”). This was a suit brought by Knight Frank against the MCST in the District Court in DC Suit No. 2341/2015 (“KF suit”).

As recounted in my judgment in DC 594, the KF suit was a claim by Knight Frank against the MCST for unpaid fees under its managing agent agreement. In turn, the MCST had counterclaimed damages for various breaches of contract. The MCST had appointed Central Chambers Law Corporation as its solicitors, and the fifth MC had authorised the plaintiff to liaise with them for the conduct of the litigation. The fifth MC had also given a signed mandate to the plaintiff to settle the suit. The contents of the settlement mandate were regarded by the plaintiff as privileged and not to be disclosed to the defendant. The non-disclosure of the details of the KF suit was to become the source of strife between them. The KF suit was eventually settled on the day of trial on terms to be kept confidential as between the parties in that suit.

The sixth AGM saw the election of seven new members to the MC. They included the defendant and two other subsidiary proprietors, Amy Chan and Tan Beng Choo (“Tan”), whom the plaintiff named as the defendant’s good friends and members of her “camp”. This was denied by the defendant as she was introduced to Tan only on the day of the AGM by Amy Chan2. The antagonism between the parties which began in the AGM continued in the MC meetings. At the first MC meeting in May 2016, the defendant did not support the plaintiff’s appointment as Secretary. The plaintiff perceived that the defendant, together with Amy Chan and Tan, had harboured a grudge against him for his refusal to disclose the settlement mandate in the KF suit at the sixth AGM. As outlined in my judgment in DC 594, the hostility between the parties is discernible from the email exchanges between the parties. These emails which carried various discussion threads were also copied to the other MC members as well as the managing agent3.

Tan was subsequently removed as a council member at an extraordinary general meeting (“EOGM”) of the MCST held on 5 November 2016. This resulted from a complaint of misconduct arising from WhatsApp messages that Tan had sent to the chairperson of the MC, Alice Ng, which were regarded as defamatory. As Tan had refused to apologise to the chairperson, the MC members by a majority resolved that an EOGM be convened for her removal by the MCST. At the EOGM the plaintiff, as Secretary, had outlined the details of the misconduct to justify Tan’s removal, and the resolution for Tan’s removal was carried by a majority vote of the subsidiary proprietors who attended.

According to the plaintiff, the defendant was bitter with the removal of Tan at the EOGM. She then sent the Complaint against him to the Law Society in collusion with Tan and Amy Chan both of whom had also sent complaints. The plaintiff was informed in March 2017 that all the complaints had been dismissed. As the defendant (and presumably Tan and Amy Chan as well) had made statutory declarations supporting the matters stated in their complaints in compliance with the LPA, the plaintiff lodged police reports alleging that they had made false statements against him constituting offences under the Oaths and Declarations Act (Cap 211). As no action was taken by the police against the defendant, the plaintiff then commenced this suit in November 20174.

The defamatory words

The plaintiff’s case is that the following words which appear as the four main headings in the Complaint are defamatory of him5: “(a) The Lawyer's use of his status and expertise as an advocate and solicitor to make threats of legal proceedings in attempts to prevent council members of MCST 3534 ("Council Members") from exercising their rights and properly carrying out their duties. The Lawyer's improper advice on and mishandling of the case against Knight Frank in DC Suit No. DC/DC 2341/2015 ("the Suit"). The Lawyer's insistence that payment be made for the provision of unlicensed guards by April Security. The Lawyer's failure to properly review the contract with April Security.”

Further, in summarising the Complaint, the defendant had published the following words which are also defamatory of the plaintiff:

The Lawyer's conduct has reached such a level of egregiousness that I can no longer ignore it. As the Lawyer has brushed aside all reminders to him to conduct himself appropriately, I believe that his bullying, overbearing, and/or negligent conduct must be brought to the Law Society's attention so the Law Society can take action to prevent this individual from continuing to tarnish the professional image of lawyers.”

Plaintiff’s claim

The plaintiff pleaded6 that the words in the Complaint as identified above (“the Words”), in their natural and ordinary meaning, meant and/or were understood to mean that: he had misused his status as an advocate and solicitor to make threats of legal proceedings with the motive of preventing council members from exercising their rights and properly carrying out their duties as council members; he had as a lawyer given improper advice and mishandled the case involving the MC; he had also wrongly insisted that payment be made of unlicensed guards; he had as a lawyer incompetently reviewed the contract with April Security; and in addition to being a bully and negligent, he had been defiant by refusing to conduct himself appropriately and was tarnishing the professional image of lawyers.

The plaintiff also pleaded7 by way of innuendo that the Words meant and were understood to mean that he was unfit to be a member of the legal profession or of the MC, being incompetent, intimidating and capable of condoning illegal activities.

It was further pleaded in the alternative8 that the Words are also capable of having a lesser meaning in that they intended to mean that the plaintiff was a dishonourable man and an incompetent lawyer.

The plaintiff claims9 that by virtue of the Words, he has been embarrassed and humiliated and has suffered damage to his reputation and standing as a practising advocate and solicitor, as the honorary Secretary of the MC, and as a member of the previous and the current MC.

In his claim for damages, including aggravated damages, the plaintiff pleaded reliance on, inter alia, the following matters10, namely: the tone and language used by the defendant in the Words; and the Words were published by the defendant maliciously, knowing they were false, or recklessly,...

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