Yvonne Ho Yi Wen v Snowbell Low Xueling Sherlyn (Liu Xueling)

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Andre Sim
• Judgment Date: 17 August 2023
• Neutral Citation: [2023] SGMC 66
• Court: Magistrates' Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Magistrate Court Suit No 2343 of 2022
• Hearing Date: 20 March 2023,23 May 2023
• Citation: [2023] SGMC 66
• Year: 2023
• Plaintiff Counsel: Tan Jin Song and Ng Wan Yun Deborah (Havelock Law Corporation)
• Defendant Counsel: Bernard Sahagar s/o Tanggavelu (Lee Bon Leong & Co)
• Subject Matter: Personal Property,Ownership,Whether plaintiff was the owner of the disputed items,Nemo dat principle,Ex-husband gifting disputed items to defendant,Tort,Detinue,Whether defendant wrongfully detained items belonging to plaintiff
• Published date: 30 August 2023

Magistrate Andre Sim:

In this action, Ms Yvonne Ho (the “Plaintiff”) seeks the return of two items of jewellery that she claims belongs to her. The items were purportedly taken without her permission by her ex-husband, Mr Tan Lai Hock, known as “Keagan”, and are now in the possession of Ms Snowbell Low (the “Defendant”). The Defendant allegedly refused to return the said jewellery, despite the Plaintiff’s repeated demands for her to do so.

The present case is an apt reminder of the salutary principle that the plaintiff always bears the legal burden of proving its case on the balance of probabilities. This means that a plaintiff must show that its case is more likely true than not true; and it does not suffice for it merely to show that its case is more likely to be true than the defendant’s.

In the present proceedings, the Plaintiff has adduced only limited documentary evidence to support her alleged purchase and ownership of the disputed items. Having assessed parties’ evidence and submissions, I am not satisfied that the Plaintiff has discharged her legal burden of proving her case. These are the reasons for my decision.

Background and chronology

Though this dispute fundamentally involves a straightforward property claim over jewellery, the background context and relationship between the parties is rather more complicated. At the material time, the Plaintiff, Keagan and the Defendant were in what parties themselves describe as a “love triangle”. As will be discussed later, however, Keagan himself was not called as a witness to testify in these proceedings. Hence, the chronology of events set out below is gleaned only from the Plaintiff’s and the Defendant’s own accounts, as well as the objective documentary evidence adduced.

The Plaintiff is the ex-wife of Keagan. The two had been married for some years before divorce proceedings were commenced in April 2020. Interim judgment of divorce was granted in May 2020, and final judgment was given in August 2020. During this time, the relationship between the Plaintiff and Keagan appears to have remained cordial, and the terms of the divorce were entered by consent. Both of them continued to reside at the matrimonial home, though in separate rooms. The pair were also involved in a debt collection business together. The business was registered under the name SDCS Holdings Private Limited (“SDCS”), an exempt private company limited by shares whose company bank account was used to pay partially for the disputed items.

As early as 2019, the Defendant and Keagan began a romantic relationship with each other. The Defendant describes this as an “on and off relationship”, in that they would often fight, break up and get back together again. During the course of their relationship, Keagan would stay over at her place occasionally. He is said to have showered her with gifts and proposed to her several times. According to the Defendant, she did not know at the time that they met that Keagan was married, and she only found out in May 2020 from their mutual friends.

It is unclear, on the other hand, when exactly the Plaintiff discovered the relationship between the Defendant and Keagan. Based on a Facebook post supposedly made by the Plaintiff in May 2020 regarding their relationship, she had already known of it for some time before then.

This brings us to September 2020, when the items in dispute were purchased. The two pieces of jewellery that are the subject-matter of this dispute are: a Rolex Datejust watch with a 31mm mother-of-pearl dial on a rose gold/steel jubilee bracelet, which was purchased for $12,800 (the “Watch”); and a Cartier ring with a pink stone, which was purchased for $2,000 (the “Ring”) (collectively, the “Jewellery”).

The purchase of the Jewellery is evidenced by an invoice (“Invoice”) issued by Goldman Luxury Pte Ltd (“Goldman Luxury”). It is not disputed that the Jewellery was bought on the date recorded on the Invoice, which was 7 September 2020. The key point of contention is who paid for and purchased the Jewellery. The Plaintiff claims to be the sole purchaser of the Jewellery, whereas the Defendant asserts that it was Keagan who had bought the Jewellery and gifted the same to her.

Regardless of who was the original purchaser, there is evidence that the Plaintiff herself had worn the Jewellery sometime in October and November 2020. Photographs depicting the Plaintiff wearing the Jewellery were adduced with timestamps dated in those two months.

Sometime in December 2020, however, Keagan apparently gave the Jewellery to the Defendant as an “engagement gift”. Subsequent to this proposal, Keagan sent a text message in January 2021 to the Defendant stating that “I pass you a ring and watch for prove [sic] I’m sincere in marriage”. In February 2021, Keagan made yet another Facebook post expressing his wish to marry the Defendant. Photographs and videos of the Defendant (together with Keagan) were adduced showing that by January 2021, the Defendant was wearing pieces of jewellery that appeared to be the Watch and Ring. The Defendant testified that during this period, she wore the gifted pieces of jewellery on a regular basis.

Several months later, in August 2021, the Defendant finally broke up with Keagan for good.

Shortly thereafter, on 7 September 2021, the Plaintiff says she finally discovered that the Jewellery was missing. She claims that she confronted Keagan over this, and he admitted that he had taken and “brought the Jewellery to the Defendant’s house”. The Plaintiff then made several attempts to seek the return of the Jewellery from the Defendant, which included a visit to the Defendant’s home accompanied by her mother-in-law and a staff member from the Plaintiff’s debt collection company. Although the Defendant did return several personal belongings of Keagan (who occasionally stayed with her at her flat), these did not include the Jewellery in question. Police reports were then filed by the parties against each other.

An exchange of correspondence between parties’ solicitors followed in mid-September 2021, in which the Plaintiff demanded the return of the Jewellery. In reply, the Defendant acknowledged having possession of a “Rolex Watch and a Cartier Ring” but refused to hand them over to the Plaintiff on the basis that the items had been gifted to her by Keagan.

Feeling harassed by the Plaintiff’s tactics, the Defendant then filed an application against the Plaintiff and Keagan under the Protection from Harassment Act 2014 in November 2021. Neither respondent appeared at the proceedings to defend the application, and the Defendant was thereby granted a protection order against the two.

On 17 March 2022, the Plaintiff finally commenced the present action to seek the return of the Jewellery from the Defendant.

The parties’ cases The Plaintiff’s case

The Plaintiff’s case concerning her supposed ownership of the Jewellery is fairly straightforward. According to the Plaintiff, she purchased the Watch and the Ring from Goldman Luxury on 7 September 2020. She alone paid for the entire purchase through several modes of payment, the details of which will be discussed shortly. She wore the Jewellery on various occasions from October until the end of November 2020, and kept them at home in a safe box when they were not in use.

A year after the purchase, on 7 September 2021, the Plaintiff finally discovered the Jewellery missing from the safe box in which they were kept. As mentioned, she confronted Keagan about the missing Jewellery, and Keagan apparently admitted that he had taken and brought the Jewellery to the Defendant’s place. The Plaintiff thus contacted the Defendant to seek the return of the Jewellery, but the Defendant refused to do so.

Following from the above, the Plaintiff contends that she is the sole legal owner of the Jewellery, and that she is therefore entitled to immediate possession of the same. She relies on the common law principle of nemo dat quod non habet, which simply means that no one can give what he does not have. According to the Plaintiff, since Keagan was himself not the owner of the Jewellery, he could not transfer legal ownership to the Defendant (by way of the purported gift or otherwise). As the Defendant has refused to return possession of the Jewellery, the Plaintiff asserts a claim in detinue and pleads for the following reliefs: An order for delivery up of the Jewellery; or alternatively, in the event that the Defendant is no longer in possession of the Jewellery, or is unwilling or otherwise unable to return the same, the value of Jewellery in the sum of $14,800, and/or such other sum as the Court deems fit. Further and/or in the alternative, damages to be assessed.

The Defendant’s case

The Defendant’s pleaded defence is that it was in fact Keagan who had purchased the Jewellery on 7 September 2020 from Goldman Luxury, and he was therefore the legal owner of the same. When Keagan subsequently gave the Jewellery to her as an engagement gift in December 2020, he is said to have effectively transferred over his legal title, thereby making her the rightful legal owner. The Defendant thus claims that she is now entitled to keep possession of the Jewellery, and denies any liability to the Plaintiff for wrongful detention of the property. As at the time of trial, the Defendant confirmed that she still had the Jewellery in her possession.

At this point, it bears mention that in the Defendant’s affidavit of evidence-in-chief (“AEIC”), she made a cursory remark that she “do[es] not know if the Plaintiff and [her] are even talking about the same items”. By this, the Defendant appeared to suggest that the watch and ring gifted to her by Keagan are not the same Jewellery being sought by the Plaintiff in this action. Notably, this is an entirely unpleaded defence, even though the Defendant says that she had raised the point at the...