Case Details
- Citation: [2022] SGHC 102
- Title: Wee Lai Soon (alias Hoi Lai Soon) and another v Ong Jian Min
- Court: High Court of the Republic of Singapore (General Division)
- Suit No: Suit No 512 of 2020
- Date of Judgment: 5 May 2022
- Judges: Andrew Ang SJ
- Hearing Dates: 15–17, 21, 22 September, 12 November 2021, 14 January, 14 February, 28 February 2022
- Procedural Posture: Judgment in default of appearance entered for plaintiffs; damages to be assessed at a subsequent assessment hearing
- Plaintiffs/Applicants: (1) Wee Lai Soon (alias Hoi Lai Soon) (2) Yew Kwai Lin
- Defendant/Respondent: Ong Jian Min
- Legal Areas: Damages — Measure of damages; Damages — Assessment; Negligence; Personal injuries
- Statutes Referenced: (Not specified in the provided extract)
- Cases Cited: [2001] SGHC 303; [2004] SGHC 43; [2015] SGHCR 14; [2016] SGHC 41; [2022] SGHC 102
- Length of Judgment: 47 pages, 11,853 words
Summary
This High Court decision concerns an assessment of damages following a motor accident caused by the defendant’s negligent driving. The plaintiffs—Mr Wee Lai Soon and Mdm Yew Kwai Lin—sued in negligence for personal injuries sustained when the defendant’s vehicle collided with them while they were behind a stationary taxi on the Seletar Expressway (Central Expressway). Liability had already been determined in the plaintiffs’ favour by default; the remaining dispute at the assessment hearing focused on causation of particular injuries and the quantum of damages, including general damages for pain and suffering and special damages for loss of earnings and medical-related expenses.
The court accepted that several injuries were caused or wholly attributable to the accident, while also scrutinising the medical evidence and the plausibility of the plaintiffs’ claimed losses. For Mr Wee, the court awarded damages for left shoulder/biceps tendon injuries and for cervical and lumbar spondylosis, and it accepted a claim for pre-trial loss of earnings on the basis that, although he was not totally incapacitated, his accident-related injuries made him practically unemployable given his age and functional limitations. For Mdm Yew, the court similarly assessed causation and quantified damages for pain and suffering, nursing and care expenses, future medical expenses, and loss of earnings.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
On 29 June 2017 at about 11.28pm, the defendant was driving a Nissan Latio along the first lane on the Seletar Expressway (Central Expressway). At the material time, a Hyundai taxi ahead was stationary in the same lane. The plaintiffs were behind that stationary taxi. The defendant’s vehicle collided into the first and second plaintiffs, resulting in injuries to both plaintiffs (the “Accident”).
After the Accident, the plaintiffs commenced an action in negligence. A judgment in default of appearance was entered in the plaintiffs’ favour on 25 June 2020. Damages were to be assessed, with interest and costs reserved to the assessment hearing. This procedural posture is important: the court was not re-determining liability, but rather assessing the appropriate compensation for the injuries and losses claimed.
For the assessment, the parties prepared a Joint Opening Statement (“JOS”) dated 8 September 2021 (later amended) and tendered it to the court on 16 September 2021. The JOS set out the items of claim for each plaintiff in Annex A (for Mr Wee) and Annex B (for Mdm Yew), together with the defendant’s responses. The defendant agreed to certain items, which narrowed the live issues to the remaining disputed items.
At the hearing, the court identified the key disputes. For Mr Wee, the issues included whether specific injuries—particularly right arm/shoulder injury, cervical and lumbar spondylosis, and knee pains/osteoarthritis—were directly caused by the Accident, and what the correct awards should be for pain and suffering, pre-trial loss of earnings, and loss of future earnings. For Mdm Yew, the issues included whether numbness in her left hand was caused by the Accident, the quantum of pain and suffering, nursing and care expenses, future medical expenses, future costs of medical nursing care, and both pre-trial and future loss of earnings.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The first cluster of issues concerned causation. In personal injury assessments, the court must determine whether the injuries claimed are causally linked to the accident, and whether they are wholly caused by the accident or merely aggravated by it. Here, the defendant challenged causation for certain injuries, including arguments that some conditions were pre-existing degenerative problems rather than accident-related injuries.
The second cluster of issues concerned the measure and assessment of damages. The court had to quantify general damages for pain and suffering for each plaintiff, and special damages for medical and related expenses, loss of earnings (pre-trial and future), and other heads such as nursing and care costs. The court also had to consider the evidential basis for claimed earnings, including bank statements, the plaintiffs’ work history, and the practical impact of the injuries on employability.
Finally, the court had to determine interest payable on the awarded sums and the appropriate costs consequences. While the extract provided focuses on the substantive assessment, the judgment structure indicates that interest and costs were addressed after the quantum determinations.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The court’s analysis began with the medical evidence and the JOS framework. For Mr Wee, the court noted that the plaintiffs did not pursue a claim for right shoulder injuries (JOS Annex A Item 1). This narrowed the assessment to the remaining injury items. In relation to JOS Annex A Item 2 (left biceps and shoulder), the plaintiffs claimed $17,000 while the defendant submitted $10,000. The court awarded $15,000, grounding the assessment in the nature of the injury: left subscapularis tendinopathy and a near full thickness tear of the anterior to mid fibres of the left supraspinatus tendon.
In calibrating general damages, the court compared the injury profile with prior case law. Counsel for the plaintiffs relied on Ting Heng Mee v Sin Shing Fresh Fruit Pte Ltd [2004] SGHC 43, where the claimant was awarded $13,500 for a partial tear of the supraspinatus tendon with biceps tendinopathy on the left shoulder. The court observed that in Ting Heng Mee, by the time of review the pain had resolved and shoulder movement was fairly good and painless. In contrast, in the present case, Dr Michael Yam’s report dated 30 July 2019 indicated improvement with physiotherapy but did not state that symptoms had fully resolved. This distinction supported a higher award than the comparator case.
For JOS Annex A Item 3 (cervical and lumbar spondylosis), Mr Wee claimed $8,000. The defendant initially argued that these back injuries were not attributable to the Accident and were due to pre-existing degeneration. The court rejected this argument because the medical report identified “back contusion”, ie bruising on the back, which is inconsistent with a purely degenerative explanation. During cross-examination, the defendant sought agreement that the accident merely aggravated pre-existing degeneration. Dr Yam declined because there was no evidence of pre-existing degeneration. The court therefore concluded that the back injuries were wholly caused by the Accident and allowed the full $8,000 claim.
The court then turned to loss of earnings, a head of damages that often requires careful reasoning about counterfactual employment prospects. For JOS Annex A Item 7 (pre-trial loss of earnings), Mr Wee claimed $90,000 based on a monthly income of $1,800 for 50 months from July 2017 to August 2021. He supported this with evidence from bank statements showing an average monthly cash deposit of $1,473. The shortfall was explained by the fact that he did not bank all earnings and kept some cash on hand. The court accepted this explanation as part of the evidential context.
Mr Wee’s work history was central. He testified that he and his wife operated canteen stalls for about 40 years and that, but for the Accident, he would have continued operating the stall. He was 72 at the time of the Accident and maintained that he would have worked until he no longer had the strength. Dr Yam’s evidence under cross-examination suggested that Mr Wee could have continued working up to whatever age he desired. The defendant suggested that osteoarthritis of the knee (not caused by the Accident) would have limited his ability to work. Mr Wee accepted that the COVID-19 pandemic reduced patronage, but the court noted there was no evidential basis to quantify the percentage decrease.
Two main objections were raised by the defendant. First, the defendant argued that the real reason Mr Wee did not continue working was that his wife—the main cook—was incapacitated due to the Accident, and that this could not ground Mr Wee’s claim for pre-trial loss of earnings because the injuries must be shown to have resulted in Mr Wee’s own inability to work. The court rejected this as an overly narrow approach. It reasoned that while Mr Wee’s injuries might not have rendered him physically unable to work altogether, they made him practically unemployable. Given his age and functional limitations—difficulty carrying heavy things due to left shoulder and back injuries, and difficulty standing for long due to knee problems—the court found it strained credibility that he could have secured employment elsewhere, such as as a hawker assistant. Although there was no evidence that he had tried unsuccessfully to obtain such work, the court accepted that he would more likely than not have failed.
Second, the defendant argued that any inability to work might have been contributed to by osteoarthritis of the left knee, which Dr Yam confirmed was a new complaint in 2018 and not attributable to the Accident. The court’s response was that, even with the knee problem, Dr Yam opined that Mr Wee could have continued working up to whatever age he desired. This supported the conclusion that the Accident-related injuries were sufficiently causative of the loss claimed, even if other conditions existed.
Although the extract truncates the remainder of the reasoning for the pre-trial loss of earnings and does not reproduce the court’s full calculations, the visible analysis demonstrates the court’s method: it accepted credible evidence of earning capacity, assessed employability in practical terms rather than purely medical incapacity, and treated causation as a real-world inquiry into whether the accident-related injuries materially affected the plaintiff’s ability to earn.
For Mdm Yew, the judgment similarly followed a structured assessment approach. The issues included causation of numbness in her left hand, the quantum of pain and suffering, and various special damages including nursing and care expenses, future medical expenses, and future costs of medical nursing care. The court also addressed pre-trial and future loss of earnings. The judgment’s organisation in the extract indicates that the court treated each item in the JOS methodically, distinguishing between agreed items and disputed items, and applying the same causation and quantification principles.
What Was the Outcome?
The court awarded damages for Mr Wee’s left biceps and shoulder injury (JOS Annex A Item 2) in the sum of $15,000 and allowed his claim for cervical and lumbar spondylosis (JOS Annex A Item 3) in the sum of $8,000. It also accepted Mr Wee’s claim for pre-trial loss of earnings, reasoning that his accident-related injuries made him practically unemployable despite not rendering him totally incapable of work.
For Mdm Yew, the court assessed and awarded damages across the disputed heads, including general damages for pain and suffering and special damages for nursing and care, future medical expenses, and loss of earnings (pre-trial and future), subject to the court’s findings on causation and quantum. The judgment further addressed interest payable and costs, reflecting the standard structure of an assessment of damages after default liability.
Why Does This Case Matter?
This case is instructive for practitioners because it demonstrates how the High Court approaches damages assessment in motor accident negligence claims where liability is already established and the dispute is confined to causation and quantum. The court’s reasoning shows that causation is not assessed in a vacuum: even where a plaintiff is not medically “incapable” of all work, the court may find that accident-related injuries render the plaintiff practically unemployable, thereby supporting loss of earnings claims.
For lawyers preparing personal injury damages submissions, the decision highlights the importance of (i) aligning medical evidence with the claimed injury heads, (ii) addressing pre-existing or degenerative conditions with careful cross-examination of medical witnesses, and (iii) providing credible evidence of earnings and work history. The court’s acceptance of Mr Wee’s explanation for the bank statement shortfall (cash kept on hand) underscores that courts may consider practical realities of how claimants bank income, provided the explanation is credible and consistent with the overall evidence.
Finally, the case is useful as a reference point for the calibration of general damages by comparison with prior awards. The court’s use of Ting Heng Mee [2004] SGHC 43 illustrates how differences in symptom resolution and functional recovery can justify a higher or lower award even when the injury type is broadly similar. This comparative approach is particularly relevant for shoulder tendon injuries and other soft tissue conditions where recovery timelines and residual symptoms vary.
Legislation Referenced
- (Not specified in the provided extract)
Cases Cited
- Ting Heng Mee v Sin Shing Fresh Fruit Pte Ltd [2004] SGHC 43
- [2001] SGHC 303
- [2015] SGHCR 14
- [2016] SGHC 41
- [2022] SGHC 102
Source Documents
This article analyses [2022] SGHC 102 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.