ANDY TAN POH WENG v JEE LEE

Facts

Andy Tan Poh Weng sued Jee Lee for negligently driving a bus into the rear of his van on 26 May 2010. Interlocutory judgment was entered by consent in 2014 at 95% against the defendant, with damages to be assessed. The assessment only began in 2024. The plaintiff, an air-conditioning installer, already had several degenerative spinal conditions before the accident, including cervical spondylosis and spondylolisthesis. After the accident he had spinal fusion surgery and a revision surgery, was involved in two further road accidents, and was later diagnosed with major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The plaintiff ultimately sought $1,950,711.95; the defendant said $8,756.85 was proper. On 23 April 2025 the deputy registrar assessed damages at $10,608.10. The plaintiff appealed the assessment (RA 19) and the decision on costs and interest (RA 30), and applied in District Court Summons No 2070 of 2025 to adduce further evidence. The defendant had made an interim payment of $100,000 and applied for the return of $89,391.90; another deputy registrar dismissed that application and the defendant appealed (RA 32). District Judge Chiah Kok Khun heard all the matters in District Court Suit No 1276 of 2016.

Issues

1. Whether the accident aggravated the plaintiff's pre-existing degenerative spinal conditions.
2. Whether the accident caused the plaintiff's psychiatric conditions.
3. Whether the awards for loss of earnings, expenses, costs and interest should be disturbed.
4. Whether further evidence should be admitted on a registrar's appeal from an assessment of damages.
5. Whether repayment of an excess interim payment could be ordered after the judgment was perfected.

Holding

The court dismissed RA 19, RA 30 and RA 32 and allowed the application to adduce further evidence. Although RA 32 was dismissed, the court ordered the plaintiff to repay the $89,391.90 to the defendant within seven days, since there was no basis for him to keep it. Each party bore its own costs of RA 32, and the plaintiff was ordered to pay global costs of $10,000 to the defendant.

Reasoning

Credibility. The court said the plaintiff's focus on how serious the collision was missed the point: the question was how serious his injuries were. It agreed with the deputy registrar that the plaintiff's evidence was unreliable, noting that after filing his claim he amended his tax assessments for 2008 and 2009 to show much higher pre-accident income, with no employer CPF contributions to support it.

Aggravation. The neck pain after the accident resolved within months, and new symptoms only emerged nearly two years later. The defence expert's view that true aggravation shows within weeks was preferred; the plaintiff's experts' reasoning was circular. For the lower back, the experts' opinion depended on four premises, including immediate back pain and no other cause. The defendant disproved two of them, as there was no credible evidence of back pain right after the accident and natural degeneration and heavy work offered other explanations. Experts assist the court but do not decide, as Eu Lim Hoklai v PP [2011] 3 SLR 167 makes clear. The awards of $5,000 for the neck, $4,000 for the back and $1,000 for the chest contusion stood, and nothing was due for the surgical scar.

Psychiatric injury. The psychiatrists' joint statement gave no reasons and assumed the accident needed surgery; the symptoms emerged around the 2011 accident.

Earnings, expenses, costs and interest. By the plaintiff's own case his earnings rose after the accident, and no causal link to the surgeries was shown, so no loss of earnings or earning capacity was awarded. Only $1,166.42 of expenses were linked to the accident. The plaintiff had rejected a Calderbank offer of $66,500 that beat the judgment, so indemnity costs on the High Court scale were justified given the size of his claim. No interest was due because the interim payment exceeded the damages.

Further evidence. On a registrar's appeal from an assessment, Lassiter Ann Masters v To Keng Lam (alias Toh Jeanette) [2004] 2 SLR(R) 392 gives a wider discretion on non-availability. The court found sufficiently strong reasons, an oversight by the plaintiff and his former solicitors, and admitted the work schedules.

Interim payment. Under O 29 r 17 of the Rules of Court 2014 repayment must be ordered before the judgment is perfected, so the deputy registrar rightly refused the defendant's application. But since the plaintiff had no basis to keep the excess, the court ordered its return.

From the judgment