LAU YUN ZHEN v JAMES SOO YA GE

Case Significance

Illustrates appellate restraint in a defamation appeal, upholding a global damages award of RM80,000 for serious imputations of sexual misconduct where the defendant was not entitled to disseminate unverified accusations and did not dispute the statements.

This High Court decision at Muar concerns an appeal against a Sessions Court decision awarding damages in a defamation claim. The plaintiff had sued the defendant in the Sessions Court over three defamatory acts, all centring on accusations that the plaintiff had committed sexual harassment against three students: a slander through the oral dissemination of the accusations and further defamatory statements published on the defendant's Facebook account reinforcing the same accusations. The Sessions Court found the plaintiff had been defamed and awarded RM80,000 as global damages, and the defendant appealed. The court applied the settled principles governing appellate intervention, under which an appellate court will not lightly disturb the findings of the trial court. It upheld the trial judge's findings that the defamatory statements were consistent and conveyed, in their natural and ordinary meaning, that the plaintiff had committed sexual misconduct against three male students, portraying him as irresponsible, unethical and dangerous. It agreed that, although the plaintiff had earlier been charged, he had been given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal with no further prosecution, and that the presumption of innocence meant the defamatory statements could not be justified on that basis; that the defendant's position as a teacher did not entitle him to make such allegations; and that the proper course would have been to advise the students to lodge a police report rather than disseminate unverified accusations. It noted that the trial judge had admitted documents under section 73A of the Evidence Act 1950 and had found that the defendant did not dispute the defamatory statements. Holding that the award of RM80,000 was neither excessive nor exorbitant on the facts, the court dismissed the appeal with costs of RM5,000 to the plaintiff. The judgment is a useful illustration of appellate restraint in defamation appeals and of the assessment of global damages for serious imputations of sexual misconduct.