Jasmine Gowrimani d/o Daniel v Realstar Property Pte Ltd now known as Realstar Premier Property Consultant Pte Ltd and Another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Wong Peck
• Judgment Date: 10 August 2016
• Neutral Citation: [2016] SGMC 42
• Court: Magistrates' Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Suit No 2636 of 2011, RA No 10 of 2016, RAS No 20 of 2016
• Published date: 25 August 2016
• Year: 2016
• Hearing Date: 27 July 2016,13 July 2016,13 April 2016
• Plaintiff Counsel: The Plaintiff in person
• Defendant Counsel: Benedict Teo (M/s Drew and Napier LLC)
• Subject Matter: Civil Procedure- Striking out
• Citation: [2016] SGMC 42

District Judge Wong Peck: Introduction

The Plaintiff, who is a practicing lawyer, commenced this suit in 2011 seeking damages, costs and interest for alleged defamation and malicious falsehood arising in the context of a conveyancing transaction. The offending words were allegedly published by the second Defendant, who was in the employ of the first Defendant, by way of an email sent on 28 January 2005 to two persons; namely, a bank officer from the United Overseas Bank (“UOB”), a Mr Danny Lim (“Danny”) and another solicitor from the law firm of M/s Sim Mong Teck & Partners, a Ms Alli Ruthirapathy (“Ms Alli”). This matter came up for hearing before me as an appeal by the Plaintiff against the decision of the Deputy Registrar (“DR”) in striking out the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim and Reply under Order 18 Rule 19(1) of the Rules of Court (Cap. 322, 2014 Rev. Ed.) and that the action against the Defendants be dismissed with costs. The DR had allowed the Defendants’ application for striking out of the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim, in the absence of the Plaintiff, after hearing submissions from the Defendants’ counsel. The Defendants’ counsel had informed the DR that the application for striking out had been served on the Plaintiff on 29 January 2016. However, at the appeal hearing, both parties were present to submit their arguments before me. At the hearing, I granted the Plaintiff leave to adduce an affidavit which she had filed on 13 July 2016 vide Summons 3713 of 2016. After hearing the parties, I dismissed the appeal. The Plaintiff has since appealed against my decision. Leave to appeal against my decision has not been obtained from this court as the Plaintiff withdrew her application for such leave on 27 July 2016. These are the written grounds of my decision for dismissing the appeal against the DR’s decision.

Issues

At the hearing before me, the issues as gleaned from the Plaintiff’s main arguments were: Whether the Defendants’ service of their application for striking out the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim was improper; and Whether the Plaintiff’s claim should be struck off for abuse of process of the court due the Plaintiff’s conduct in the proceedings.

Background

In 2004, the second Defendant was a real estate agent in the employ of the first Defendant. Sometime in end of 2004, she was authorized by the purchasers of the property at 9 Jalan Tua Kong, Singapore to do all things necessary to complete the purchase as the purchasers were based in Guangzhou, China. This included liaising with the purchasers’ solicitors as well as the purchasers’ financiers which was UOB. The Plaintiff acted for UOB in this conveyancing transaction. Ms Alli acted for the purchasers.

According to the second Defendant, there was confusion amongst the staff at UOB as to who the solicitor acting for the purchasers was. On 27 January 2005, the second Defendant sent an email to Danny stating that Ms Alli was the appointed solicitor. This email, which was copied to the Plaintiff, read as follows:

“ Danny,

Please note that Ms Alli from Sim Mong Teck & Partners are the lawyers acting on behalf of the client. Please contact her at xxx-xxx immediately.

As advised the completion date is 16 February 2005 and I need you to revert to Ms Alli on all proper documents by today latest as this has dragged on for some time and I don’t want the completion to be delayed due to this.

Thanks for your assistance.”

This was followed by an email from the Plaintiff sent on the same date stating as follows:

“ Dear Danny,

We thank you for the email of even date from one Pamela Quek and for obtaining the completion date and the name of solicitors acting for the borrowers in the S&P.

However, we are somewhat puzzled by the penultimate paragraph of Ms. Quek’s email; she appears to be issuing instructions to us vide the email to you.

We have checked with the Law Society directory; there is no Ms. Pamela Quek who is a practicing lawyer. Neither does it appear that the said Ms. Quek is an employee of M/s Sim Mong Teck & Partners. Finally we are also not aware of any Pamela Quek in the employ of UOB Limited. As such, we are deeply puzzled why Ms. Quek appears to labour under the misconception that she has some locus to be involved in this transaction, let alone, issue instructions to anyone in this matter.

However, from the ultimate name on the said e-mail, it does appear that the said Ms. Quek is a property agent. If so, please assist us in educating Ms. Quek that she lacks all locus, ie, legal standing, to issue instructions or give orders. She is neither a party to the transaction nor an authorized representative. Under the circumstances, we shall appreciate if you could educate Ms. Pamela Quek to confine herself to her role as a realtor.” (emphasis added)

According to the second Defendant, the words with emphasis added were defamatory of her so this formed the basis of her counterclaim against the Plaintiff.¹

The next day, on 28 January 2005, the second Defendant sent an email to Danny, which according to the Plaintiff, contained the allegedly offending words that was the subject matter of the Plaintiff’s claim. This email was copied to Ms Alli and the Plaintiff. According to the Statement of Claim filed on 29 May 2012, the allegedly offending words in this email of 28 January 2005 were as follows:

“It seems your lawyer Jasmine Daniel is entirely confused. Pls address her on this matter and how she should be conducting herself and her correspondences. It is unbecoming of a professional.”

Although the allegedly offending email was sent in 2005 by the second Defendant, the writ was only filed nearly six years later on 27 January 2011 just before the time bar took effect. The writ was then served on or about 22 July 2011, a few days before it lapsed.

Plaintiff’s submissions

At the hearing before this court, the Plaintiff confirmed that she did not file an application with a supporting affidavit to set aside the Defendants’ application for striking out her Statement of Claim despite this court granting her an adjournment to do so at an earlier hearing on 13 April 2016. During the hearing, the Plaintiff submitted that the Defendants’ counsel had been addressing all cover letters in her name instead of the law firm on record which was her own law firm. She also asserted that her conduct in the proceedings had not been dilatory. Two years were spent on mediation. So far, there had only been two delays on her account. One was the delay in filing an application to set aside the summons for striking out her claim (which was not filed) and another delay for which she was penalized with costs.

In the Plaintiff’s latest affidavit filed on 13 July 2016, she provided explanations for her conduct in the proceedings. In essence, she suffered from the ill effects of painkillers and/or sleep inducing pills. She started taking such medication as a result of her injuries sustained in a motor accident that occurred in September 2003. In the affidavit², she also provided the explanation as to why she did not electronically serve the Summons for Directions on the Defendants’ counsel. Due to her medical condition, she was concerned that she would not be able to wake up in time for morning hearings so she wanted to write in to change the hearing date if the hearing was fixed in the morning. There were other reasons outlined in detail in her affidavit relating to her travel arrangements which affected her ability to attend court hearings on time.

The Plaintiff also attributed delay, if any on her part, to a few changes in the solicitors acting for her. Her position was that she was not the one who discharged her solicitors. She expressed her agitation in being penalized with a costs order of $150 on 15 May 2014 for not complying with a deadline.³ She also highlighted that the Defendants did “nothing to prosecute their counterclaim”.

Defendants’ submissions

The Defendants’ counsel submitted that the main plank of her argument relating to the allegedly improper service of the summons for striking out of the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim was that it was addressed to her personally as “Ms Jasmine Gowrimani Daniel” instead of the name of her law firm named as “Jasmine Daniel”. The Plaintiff had stated in her affidavit filed on 13 July 2016 that her law firm was acting for her between 26 August 2015 and 4 May 2016⁴. The Plaintiff was raising an artificial distinction⁵. This argument was also not valid as the Plaintiff did not dispute that service of court documents and correspondences from the Defendants’ lawyers were sent to the correct address.

The Plaintiff had at all times received them and had notice of the proceedings and applications filed by the Defendants including the summons for striking out of the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim as well as Court Orders. The Defendants had not only served their application for striking out the Plaintiff’s claim on 29 January 2016, they had also written to the Plaintiff to ask if she was objecting to their application in an attempt to save costs. However, they received no response. So they proceeded with the hearing before the DR. When the Order of Court for striking out the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim was served on the Plaintiff in the same manner, she took notice and even filed an appeal against the DR’s decision. Counsel for the Defendants highlighted that when the Plaintiff took out Summons for Directions, she failed to serve the Summons on the Defendants’ counsel. Despite her assertion that she wanted to change the...