CHOWDHURY JAKIR v YU LI CONSTRUCTION & TRADING PTE. LTD. & Anor

Facts

Mr Chowdhury Jakir, a construction worker from Bangladesh, fell off a ladder from a height of approximately 2.5 metres in a workplace accident on 11 April 2018. He sued Yu Li Construction & Trading Pte Ltd and Environ Construction Co (Pte) Ltd in District Court Suit No 556 of 2021. In the first tranche, liability was apportioned 25% to him and 75% jointly to the two defendants. This judgment is the second tranche, the assessment of damages, heard over several dates in 2024 and 2025. His claim exceeded S$250,000, but his counsel confirmed he abandoned any excess above that sum so the District Court had jurisdiction.

He claimed general damages for three injuries: a head injury (occipital cephalohematoma), a back contusion, and an acute stress reaction with conversion dissociative disorder which, he said, had left him without the use of his lower limbs, with bladder, bowel and sexual dysfunction, and wheelchair-bound. He also sought loss of earning capacity, loss of future earnings, future medical expenses, pre-trial loss of earnings, and medical and transport expenses. The defendants accepted modest awards for the physical injuries but disputed the psychiatric claim and the financial heads, relying on a psychiatrist, Dr Lionel Lim, who examined him on 21 September 2022.

Issues

1. Whether the plaintiff still suffered from the psychiatric disorder and the severe disabilities he claimed
2. What general damages were appropriate for each of his three injuries
3. Whether loss of earning capacity, future earnings and future medical expenses could be awarded
4. Whether the special damages claimed had been proved

Holding

The court allowed the claim in part. It assessed general damages at S$3,000 for the head injury, S$2,000 for the back contusion and S$8,000 for the psychiatric injury, a total of S$13,000, and ordered final judgment for S$9,750 (being 75% of that sum) in the plaintiff's favour. No award was made for loss of earning capacity, loss of future earnings, future medical expenses, pre-trial loss of earnings or medical and transport expenses. Costs and interest were left for a later hearing.

Reasoning

The head injury was minor with no recorded residual disability, so the defendants' S$3,000 figure under the Guidelines was accepted over the S$15,000 claimed. The back contusion was a minor soft tissue injury; the treating doctors did not see it as the cause of his back pain or limb symptoms, so S$2,000 was awarded.

On the psychiatric injury, the court accepted the 2018 diagnosis but found that from at least 21 September 2022 he no longer suffered from it and did not have the disabilities he claimed. The NUH reports did not record any permanent paralysis. His orthopaedic expert had seen him only once in 2018 and accepted that someone with lower limb paralysis could not have lifted his leg towards his chest as Dr Lim observed. His psychiatric expert relied only on the account given by him and his family and conceded he had not run the Test of Memory Malingering, which he would usually administer; this cast doubt on his opinion. Dr Lim found no major psychiatric disorder, noted no muscle wasting, and recorded that the plaintiff declined to continue the malingering test. S$8,000 was awarded for the period from 2018 to 2022.

Without permanent disability, and with little evidence on multiplier or multiplicand, there was no basis for the earnings claims. The S$70,000 future medical claim was dismissed, and would have failed anyway: it was not linked to the expert's estimates, the 50-year multiplier was a mere estimate, and the costs assumed treatment in Singapore though he lives in Bangladesh.

Special damages must be strictly proved (Wee Sia Tian v Long Thik Boon [1996] 2 SLR(R) 420). He produced no pay slips, receipts or similar records, and took no steps after the gap was put to him in cross-examination on 15 April 2025, so these claims failed.

From the judgment