Simon Lim Beng Wee v Ong Khek Chong and others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Loo Ngan Chor
• Judgment Date: 23 October 2019
• Neutral Citation: [2019] SGDC 193
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: DC/DC Suit No. 3697 of 2017
• Year: 2019
• Published date: 05 December 2019
• Hearing Date: 29 January 2019,18 March 2019,23 July 2019,05 April 2019
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr Tham Wei Chern / Ms Charis Wang (M/s Fullerton Law Chambers LLC) -
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Daniel Chen / Ms Kelley Wong (M/s Lee & Lee) -
• Subject Matter: Defamation,Defamatory statements,Justification,Qualified Privilege,Malice
• Citation: [2019] SGDC 193

District Judge Loo Ngan Chor:

These are the grounds of my decision to dismiss the Plaintiff’s claim in libel against the Defendants, issued for the purpose of the Plaintiff’s appeal against my said decision.

The setting for the dispute before me was a strata-titled development known as WCEGA Plaza and Tower (“the complex”). The Plaintiff was the owner of Supersonic Maintenance Services Pte Ltd which owned several units in the complex. He was also briefly the chairman of the 7th Management Council (“the MC”) of the complex between 9th May 2017 and 26th October 2017.

The first Defendant was another subsidiary proprietor (“SP”) in the complex. The fourth Defendant was the sole proprietor of an occupier in the complex. The second and third Defendants were respectively the director and representative of yet two other SPs.

The claim was in libel for an undated open letter (“the letter”) sent by the Defendants to the SPs of the MCST. The Plaintiff placed the date of the letter at 10th October 2017 whereas the Defendants said that this letter was sent out on 6th October 2017. This slight difference in the dates made no difference to my consideration of the case.

As characterised by the Plaintiff, a significant proportion of SPs in the MCST were in the motor trade. Issued with red parking labels, which permitted parking inside the individual units of these label-holders, the vehicles of these motor traders were indiscriminately parked outside of their units where they were not supposed to be parked including in the basement car parks, common areas and an SCDF service road, i.e., there had been indiscriminate parking by cars issued with red labels.¹The MC voted five-to-one to revoke the red labels.

It did not appear to be disputed that the Defendants were not involved in the dispute over the red labels.

Owing to the controversy over the red labels, the pleaded Defence was that 30 SPs started legal proceedings against the complex MCST in two separate applications to the Strata Titles Board.²

The Defendants were sufficiently in disagreement with the MC to be moved to write the letter of which the Plaintiff complained.

A copy of the letter³, which occupied a page and a half of close-typed text, is annexed to these grounds at Annex A.

I now extract verbatim the specific passages in the letter to which the Plaintiff targeted his complaint:

…

We have serious concerns on how MCST is being run, which has resulted in the MCST being dragged into Court proceedings. We propose to elect a new Council which is firm and yet fair to all SPs, and which can resolve the Court proceedings amicably.

…

6. As you know, we face a shortage of car parking spaces. Current 7th Council has also revoked all additional red labels in Wcega Plaza, causing lots of inconvenience to the Plaza SPs.

…

8. 30 motor trade SPs engaged lawyers to ask the Council to reconsider the decision. However, Council refused. The 30 SPs have had commenced legal proceedings against the MCST to reverse the decision. As far as we know, MCST has spent a five-figure sum on legal fees already, to defend its decision.

…

10. The proposed Council will resolve the dispute with the 30 SPs amicably, which will also improve the parking situation in the development. The MCST will not have to waste more money on legal costs, and will be able to spend that money on better things such as repairing lifts.

…

12. Out of 9 members of the 7th Council, 3 have resigned for undisclosed reasons since the dispute with the motor trades started, leaving just 6 members. Out of these, 4 are employees of Supersonic Maintenance Services P/L, including the Chairman, who is the boss of Supersonic. The 7th Council may not be in the best position to make decisions on behalf of all SPs.

…

13. 7th Council has issued additional season parking labels to certain units without charges, and the MCST ignored Council member’s vehicles parking the SCDF service road and causing obstruction.

The Plaintiff’s complaint was that the passages in the letter, set out in the foregoing paragraph, libelled him in the natural and ordinary meaning of the words, which was that⁴: He abused his power as the Chairman of the MC, and acted unfairly and in breach of the bye-laws. He allowed or caused the MCST to allow certain MC members to park along the SCDF service road when this was disallowed, whilst other SPs were punished for doing so. He issued or caused to be issued additional season parking labels to certain units in the complex without charge. He had been derelict as Chairman of the MC or pursued a personal agenda by failing to carry out necessary works for the MCST such as lift repairs, and instead wasted MCST money on legal disputes with motor trade SPs.

The Defendants denied any or any such defamatory imputations. Alternatively, the Defendants assigned other (implicitly non-defamatory) meanings to the words, which meanings were true; these meanings were in the nature of what the words literally said, that is to say, without any defamatory imputations at all. Finally, the Defendants relied on qualified privilege.

The Plaintiff’s Reply denied the literal meanings of the text to which the Defence referred or that these were true. The Plaintiff relied on express malice to defeat the Defendants’ defence of qualified privilege and pleaded reliance on s14 of the Defamation Act (Cap 75).

In the interpretation of a document said to amount to a libel in its...