[ad_1]
SINGAPORE – The former president of the Serangoon Gardens Country Club, who sued a former employee and her supervisor for defamation after she filed an employment complaint against him, lost his case in High Court.
Mr. Terrence Fernández alleged that Ms. Genevieve Lim Shao Ying, who was the club member relations manager, had conspired with Mr. Goh Juak Kin, who was the general manager, to hurt him.
In a written judgment on Wednesday (December 30), Superior Court Judge Valerie Thean rejected Fernández’s claim that the complaint was defamatory.
Judge Thean said that a workplace complaint “necessarily involves the imposition of charges.”
“The common reasonable person would have understood the complaint as part of a broader disciplinary framework. In other words, the veracity of Ms. Lim’s allegations would not be resolved until due process has been granted,” the judge said.
The judge found that Ms. Lim filed the complaint not out of malice, but to protect herself against what she perceived as harassment and victimization in the workplace.
Judge Thean added that Ms. Lim’s statements were justified because Fernandez’s acts of micromanagement led her to feel victimized.
The case arose out of a formal complaint against Fernández filed by Ms. Lim in 2018.
At the time, he was chairman of the club’s membership relations department subcommittee.
Ms. Lim, who ran the department, did not have a good working relationship with him.
Within three weeks of starting work in January 2017, he told human resources manager Linda Loke that he felt “tremendous work pressure” and sought confirmation that he was reporting to Goh rather than Fernandez.
Ms. Lim continued to discuss her complaints with Ms. Loke seven times over three months.
In April 2017, Ms. Lim wrote to Mr. Goh, criticizing the “disruptive and disruptive behavior” of Mr. Fernández. She claimed that working with him had been “painful” and, on several occasions, “disparaging”.
Despite a mediation session organized by then-club president Randy Sng, their relationship remained strained.
Things came to a head on December 8, 2017, when Ms. Lim told a non-member named Alfred Wong that he shouldn’t be on the club premises.
Later that day, Mr. Wong wrote to Mr. Goh about his “unpleasant encounter.”
Mr. Fernandez learned of the incident from Mr. Wong and expressed concern about the matter in email correspondence with Mr. Goh, which was copied to Ms. Lim and Mr. Sng.
The matter with Mr. Wong was amicably resolved on December 26, 2017.
But Fernández continued with the matter and even proposed a meeting in which the trustees or sponsors of the club would participate.
Ms. Lim filed a complaint on January 4, 2018 and Mr. Goh forwarded it, along with his own views, to Mr. Sng.
Sng tried to arrange a meeting, but Fernandez did not attend, despite multiple attempts to accommodate his schedule.
On January 30, 2018, Fernández was removed as chair of the subcommittee.
A disciplinary investigation was launched against him, but before it could be concluded, he was elected club president on June 24, 2018.
Mr. Goh and Ms. Loke resigned that day, while Ms. Lim resigned the following month.
The disciplinary charges against Fernández were dismissed in September 2018.
He sued Lim and Goh in February last year, claiming they were in a conspiracy to sabotage his bid for the club’s presidency, among other things.
Fernández is no longer president of the club, as a new general committee was voted in in September of this year.
[ad_2]
