Case Details
- Title: JUNHO BAE v SAMUEL LATHAM DAIMWOOD & Anor
- Citation: [2019] SGHCR 9
- Court: High Court (Registrar)
- Date: 2019-06-06
- Judges: Jean Chan Lay Koon AR
- Case Type: Application to strike out pleadings (Summonses)
- Suit No: 1261 of 2018
- Summons No 355 of 2019: 1st defendant’s application to strike out under O 18 r 19(1)(a) ROC
- Summons No 796 of 2019: 2nd defendant’s application to strike out under all four limbs of O 18 r 19(1) ROC
- Plaintiff/Applicant: Junho Bae
- Defendants/Respondents: Samuel Lathan Daimwood; London School of Business & Finance Pte Ltd
- Legal Areas: Civil Procedure; Tort (Negligence); Duty of Care; Striking Out
- Statutes Referenced: Rules of Court (Cap. 332, R 5, 2006 Rev Ed) (“ROC”)
- Key Procedural Provision: O 18 r 19(1)(a) and O 18 r 19(1) (all four limbs)
- Cases Cited (as provided): [2019] SGHCR 09 (reported reference); NTUC Foodfare Co-operative Ltd v SIA Engineering Co Ltd [2018] 2 SLR 588; Spandeck Engineering (S) Pte Ltd v Defence Science & Technology Agency [2007] 4 SLR(R) 100; Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562; Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman (1985) 60 ALR 1; Anwar Patrick Adrian v Ng Chong & Hue LLC [2014] 3 SLR 761; AYW v AYX [2016] 1 SLR 1183
- Judgment Length: 20 pages, 6,133 words
- Hearing Dates: 22 March; 28 May 2019
- Judgment Reserved: [6 June 2019]
Summary
This High Court (Registrar) decision concerns two applications to strike out a plaintiff’s negligence-based claims arising from an alleged extra-marital affair. The plaintiff, Junho Bae, sued both the alleged paramour, Samuel Lathan Daimwood (a lecturer employed by the second defendant), and the educational institution, London School of Business & Finance Pte Ltd, after the plaintiff’s wife, Jenna, allegedly engaged in multiple consensual sexual acts with the first defendant during a preparatory English course conducted at the second defendant’s premises.
The plaintiff’s pleaded case was that he suffered a “recognisable psychiatric injury” (clinical depression associated with anxiety) after discovering the affair through surveillance footage. He argued that the first defendant owed him a duty of care because the first defendant knew Jenna was married to the plaintiff and it was reasonably foreseeable that the plaintiff would suffer psychiatric harm upon learning of the illicit relationship. Against the second defendant, the plaintiff pleaded vicarious liability and, alternatively, a non-delegable duty of care.
Applying the duty of care framework summarised in NTUC Foodfare (which itself synthesised Spandeck), the Registrar focused on whether the statement of claim disclosed a reasonable cause of action, particularly the proximity requirement. The decision emphasises that even at the striking-out stage, the court must seriously consider whether the pleaded facts remotely disclose an actionable tort, while also recognising that novel legal questions are generally better resolved at trial. The Registrar’s analysis ultimately turned on whether the pleaded proximity and foreseeability elements could support a duty of care in the circumstances alleged.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
At all material times, the plaintiff was lawfully married to Jenna, both of whom were South Korean nationals who had moved to Singapore. Their marriage breakdown was undisputedly linked to an affair between Jenna and the first defendant. The first defendant, Samuel Lathan Daimwood, was an English language lecturer employed by the second defendant, London School of Business & Finance Pte Ltd, which runs business and finance courses as well as preparatory English courses for students who are not proficient in English.
In January 2018, the plaintiff assisted in enrolling Jenna in the second defendant’s preparatory course in English (“PCE”). Jenna commenced the PCE on 31 January 2018. The plaintiff’s case was that the first defendant and Jenna came to know each other through the PCE classes held on the second defendant’s premises. The statement of claim then described the plaintiff’s subsequent marital difficulties as beginning in March 2018, when he began to suspect that Jenna might be having an affair.
Before leaving for a business trip to Bangkok in May 2018, the plaintiff installed a surveillance camera in the living room of the matrimonial home. He also engaged a private investigation firm to ascertain whether Jenna and the first defendant were having an affair. Between 13 May 2018 and 18 May 2018, while the plaintiff was away, the first defendant and Jenna allegedly had multiple occasions of consensual sex in the matrimonial home. The plaintiff claimed that these sexual acts were captured on surveillance footage, which he viewed from his mobile phone and laptop after returning.
The plaintiff’s pleaded narrative was that he was “shocked and upset” by what he saw and continued to view the footage even after the sexual acts were over. After returning to Singapore, he confronted Jenna, chased her out of the matrimonial home, cancelled her dependant’s pass, and commenced divorce proceedings in South Korea. He attached a medical report from Dr Lim Yun Chin, a consultant in psychological medicine at Raffles Hospital, dated 24 August 2018. Dr Lim opined that the plaintiff was suffering from depression associated with anxiety as a result of Jenna’s extra-marital affair.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The central procedural issue was whether the plaintiff’s statement of claim disclosed a reasonable cause of action against each defendant such that it should not be struck out. The first defendant sought striking out under O 18 r 19(1)(a) ROC, while the second defendant sought striking out under all four limbs of O 18 r 19(1). Although the precise “limbs” were not reproduced in the extract, the applications clearly required the court to assess whether the pleaded facts could support an actionable tort, rather than merely a grievance or speculative claim.
Substantively, the key tort-law issue was whether the plaintiff could establish a duty of care owed by the defendants to him in negligence. The plaintiff’s case against the first defendant was framed as a breach of duty of care causing a “recognisable psychiatric injury” that was directly attributable to the first defendant’s conduct of engaging in an illicit affair with Jenna while knowing she was married to the plaintiff. The plaintiff argued that the first defendant stood in a proximate relationship with him because of the first defendant’s knowledge of Jenna’s marital status and because psychiatric harm to the plaintiff was reasonably foreseeable upon learning of the affair.
Against the second defendant, the plaintiff’s pleaded theory relied primarily on vicarious liability for the first defendant’s wrongdoing during the course of employment. As an alternative, the plaintiff pleaded a non-delegable duty of care. The court therefore had to consider whether, on the pleadings, the second defendant could be said to owe the plaintiff a duty of care either through vicarious principles or through a separate duty imposed by law, and whether the proximity requirement could be satisfied in relation to the second defendant as well.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The Registrar began by identifying that the “main issue” in both striking-out applications was largely the same: whether the statement of claim disclosed a reasonable cause of action against both defendants based on the pleaded facts. This framing is important because striking out is not meant to decide the merits definitively; rather, it tests whether the claim is so lacking in legal basis that it should not proceed to trial. Nonetheless, the Registrar stressed that the court must seriously consider whether the pleaded facts “remotely” form the basis of an actionable tort.
To structure the duty of care analysis, the Registrar relied on the Court of Appeal’s summary in NTUC Foodfare, which restated the Spandeck test. Under that framework, a duty of care arises if: (a) it is factually foreseeable that the defendant’s negligence might cause the plaintiff to suffer harm; (b) there is sufficient legal proximity between the parties; and (c) policy considerations do not militate against a duty of care. The extract particularly highlights that the proximity requirement is the “key issue” in the duty analysis, focusing on the closeness of the relationship and whether the plaintiff was so closely and directly affected that the defendant ought to have had the plaintiff in contemplation when acting.
The Registrar then elaborated the proximity requirement by drawing on Spandeck and subsequent refinements. Proximity includes physical, circumstantial, and causal proximity, and incorporates twin criteria of voluntary assumption of responsibility and reliance. The extract further notes that later cases, including Anwar, developed the proximity inquiry by considering “proximity factors”, including the defendant’s knowledge in relation to the plaintiff (knowledge of the risk of harm, reliance, or vulnerability) and the defendant’s control over the situation giving rise to the risk of harm, together with the plaintiff’s corresponding vulnerability.
In applying these principles, the Registrar also referenced AYW v AYX, a High Court decision concerning a school’s alleged failure to intervene in bullying. That case was used to illustrate a procedural point relevant to striking out: novel questions of law should generally not be resolved at the striking-out stage and should be litigated fully at trial, even if the question is a pure question of law. However, the court must still seriously consider whether the pleaded facts could possibly support an actionable tort. This approach signals that the court’s role at this stage is not to decide whether the duty of care will ultimately be found, but to assess whether the claim is realistically arguable on the pleaded facts.
Although the extract provided is truncated and does not include the Registrar’s final application of the proximity factors to the facts, the reasoning framework indicates how the court would assess the plaintiff’s allegations. For the first defendant, the plaintiff’s pleaded reliance on the first defendant’s knowledge of Jenna’s marriage status is directly relevant to the “knowledge” proximity factor. The plaintiff’s vulnerability is also pleaded through the claimed psychiatric injury and the circumstances of discovery. For the second defendant, the analysis would likely consider whether the educational institution’s role in hosting the PCE classes and employing the first defendant could amount to sufficient proximity, and whether policy considerations would support or resist imposing a duty of care to a third party (the spouse) for psychiatric harm arising from an affair.
What Was the Outcome?
The provided extract does not include the Registrar’s final orders. However, the decision is clearly an interlocutory ruling on striking out under O 18 r 19(1) ROC, following a duty of care analysis structured by Spandeck and NTUC Foodfare. The practical effect of such an outcome would be either to remove the plaintiff’s claims at an early stage (if the pleadings were found to disclose no reasonable cause of action) or to allow the claims to proceed to trial (if the pleadings were considered sufficiently arguable).
For practitioners, the key takeaway from the extract is the court’s insistence on a disciplined proximity analysis even at the striking-out stage, while also recognising that novel legal questions are generally unsuitable for determination without full trial evidence. The outcome therefore turns on whether the pleaded facts were considered capable of establishing a duty of care to the plaintiff, particularly through the proximity requirement and the policy considerations that may limit negligence claims for psychiatric harm.
Why Does This Case Matter?
This case matters because it sits at the intersection of negligence law, psychiatric injury, and the limits of duty of care in relational and third-party contexts. Claims for psychiatric harm are often constrained by requirements of foreseeability, proximity, and policy. Here, the plaintiff’s injury is alleged to flow from the discovery of an affair, and the defendants are not family members but an alleged paramour and the paramour’s employer. That structure raises difficult questions about how far negligence liability extends beyond direct physical harm and beyond the immediate parties to a relationship.
From a doctrinal perspective, the decision reinforces that proximity is not a mere formality. The court’s reliance on NTUC Foodfare and Spandeck indicates that proximity will be assessed through factors such as knowledge, control, and vulnerability, and not solely through moral blameworthiness. The case also illustrates the court’s procedural approach to striking out: while novel legal questions should generally be left for trial, the court must still determine whether the pleaded facts are capable of supporting an actionable tort.
For litigators, the case is useful when drafting or challenging negligence pleadings involving psychiatric injury and third-party relationships. It underscores the importance of pleading concrete proximity facts—particularly knowledge of risk and the defendant’s control over the situation—rather than relying on broad assertions of foreseeability. It also highlights that vicarious liability and non-delegable duty theories against employers will still require a coherent duty framework, and that courts may be cautious about extending employer duties to harms that arise from intimate wrongdoing by employees.
Legislation Referenced
- Rules of Court (Cap. 332, R 5, 2006 Rev Ed) (“ROC”): O 18 r 19(1)(a); O 18 r 19(1) (all four limbs as invoked)
Cases Cited
- NTUC Foodfare Co-operative Ltd v SIA Engineering Co Ltd [2018] 2 SLR 588
- Spandeck Engineering (S) Pte Ltd v Defence Science & Technology Agency [2007] 4 SLR(R) 100
- Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562
- Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman (1985) 60 ALR 1
- Anwar Patrick Adrian v Ng Chong & Hue LLC [2014] 3 SLR 761
- AYW v AYX [2016] 1 SLR 1183
- Bae Junho v Daimwood, Samuel Lathan and another [2019] SGHCR 09 (the present case)
Source Documents
This article analyses [2019] SGHCR 9 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.