Well, sort of. The cheque certainly went from them to me. It was 2002. It was a defamation case. It was scheduled for 14 days in the High Court (with 7 days in reserve). It was settled on the seventh - my day of rest. I even wrote a book about it.
Congratulations. Please tell us more!
I had been working at Hong Kong University for nearly three years and was sacked despite having been offered a two-month observation period. I was less than happy and hired a lawyer to look at possible recourses I might have. He suggested judicial review, which I felt wouldn’t lie in my case. (After all, I wasn’t bringing a suit on behalf of a dispossessed group, such as Vietnam immigrants.) It didn’t. That avenue was closed.
But I had gained some valuable information in the process from the other side, HKU’s lawyers, namely, that in addition to writing a letter to me, my boss had written a letter to the Vice President in charge of staffing matters. I obtained a copy of that letter under the provisions of the Data Protection Ordinance, and engaged another set of lawyers to take up my cause. Reason? The letter was full of untruths (some of them rather specific, date-wise and the like), and I had photocopied everything that moved, including emails, in my last 36 hours at the University. (Stupidly, in an attempt to heigthen my anxiety, my boss had got her secretary to call me and ask me to attend a meeting with her on the following day. When I asked what the meeting would be about, so that I might prepare for it, the secretary hesitated and then said she’d call me back. She didn’t.)
So, when they refused to reinstate me, I decided to go to court. Then, my second lawyer (solicitor) met the barrister - with me and my wife - and got cold feet. Whereas before he had been pretty sanguine, he now advised me to drop the case, as he couldn’t see how I could win. I wasn’t that impressed. (Incidentally, the barrister had scarcely read my case notes and kept having to be corrected on major points by me and on one occasion my wife.)
So, I served my ex-boss with a writ about one year after she’d sacked me. 19 months later we met again in court. The other side, who had produced 15 witness statements (full of lies), refused to call any of these witnesses to give evidence in court. Including the defendant - my ex boss. Instead they wanted a settlement. I refused, but my second lawyer (who was back again assisting me out of court, like a kind of Mackenzie friend, i.e. sitting from time to time in the public gallery) advised me to settle. I said “Why? They want to settle because they’re fond of me, or because they think they’re going to lose?! I’ve waited 2 and a half years for this moment. I finish them off now - all the sleepless nghts will have been worth while.”
He said “Not so simple. The judge* hates you and will find against you on qualified privilege”. (Basically a dustbin category in defamation cases.) I thought for less than a minute, turned to my wife and said “We’ll settle.”
I’d done my best. I had to face reality, or I would possibly go insane, and certainly my wife would divorce me if I continued to fight**. So I wrote a book and my lawyer said “They’ll sue you” and I said “No they won’t”, they’ll ignore me. They did.
But at least it got to Number 3 on the bestseller list of one branch of one bookshop for one week, even though I lost a bit of money by publising it myself. (I offered it to local publishers, but they wouldn’t touch it.) I called it “Web of Deceit: Moral Bankruptcy at the University of Hong Kong”, and the cover design was all my own work too. It featured the crest of the university, with its motto “Sapientia et virtus” (Wisdom and Moral Courage) split down the middle.
Don’t expect justice by means of the lego-judicial industry.
- A Chinese woman - like my ex-boss - whose husband worked (still does) at Hong Kong University
** Of course I did continue the fight, but by bringing a complaint for deception and fraud against the University’s lawyers, against the judge for bias and incompetence, and finally by sending 500 offprints of the academic paper I’d had published on the written witness statements to assorted judges (all 160 in HK, plus half a dozen in England), politicians and journalists.
I’m confused about cronology. When did you publish your book / send the info out? Did anything come of it? (any news stories? any responses?) I’m not a lawyer (much less a Hong Kong one), but seems to me to be clear case of conflict of interest.
Brian
Brief chronology:
Sacked: June 1999
Served writ: June 2000
Court case (7 days): January 2002
Book published: May 2002
Complaint to Law Society (+ appeals): 2002/03
Complaint re judge: 2003
Letters (+ enclosures) sent to judges, politicians, journalists, etc: 2002/2003
After the book came out, I promoted it by sending a bunch of emails to every lawyer in HK whoi listed an email address, and every academic (give and take a few) who did likewise. That’s when sales shot through the roof, and a lot of folk mailed me or phoned me (75% supportive, 15% anti, 10% neutral). The local English language newspaper ran two interviews (one by phone, the other a sit-down meeting with a photographer). Neither article appeared.
Another reasonably well-known “investigative” journalist here emailed me later, when he got a copy of one of my letters mentioned above, saying he wanted to do a story and asking me quastions. Same day he wrote back to say he worked freelance, only got x thousand HK dollars a day, and it wouldn’t be worth his while.
I was invited onto the radio to plug the book on an arts programme (the presenter was very good to me, and folks who heard it said I was a radio natural) and was later featured in a feature on self-publishing authors. But all scraping round the surface of my passion: reform of the lego-judicial enterprise.
“Conflict of interest”. For who? How?
Conflict of interest for the judge who’s husband works at the institition being sued.
Brian
When I learned who the judge was going to be, a month or so before the trial, I did a bit of checking around. I found among other things that she had three degrees from Hong Kong University (LLB, MSc in Criminology and perhaps a Masters in Law - I forget now). A barrister friend said she was “an evidence judge”. I said, “What? You mean, as opposed to a non-evidence judge?” He said, “Yes.” (He wasn’t joking. It’s that bad.) Because of her strong connection with HKU, I asked the solicitor who was helping me out of court if I could ask her to be recused. He laughed. “They all went to HKU. Anyway, your case will bore her to death. She’ll hate it.”
After the trial, I was chatting with the barrister, and told him she didn’t seem to like me a lot. He replied by asking me if I knew who her husband was. I said no. But he’d got me thinking, as he would have done with you too. I thought for a time about what I could do to find out. Then I had an idea. If I phoned her home number and spoke to her Filipina helper (she must have one, as my friend had told me she had five kids), I might - just might - be able to get her to tell me who her husband was, or at least what his name was.
“Hello, is Carlye Chu there?”
“No, sir.”
“Ah, she’s in court then, is she?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then could I speak to her husband?”
“He’s not in.”
“Oh, right. Of course. What’s his name by the way?”
“Roger Chan.”
“Thanks.”
So, I had a name. On a whim, and remembering the glint in my friend’s eye when he had spoken about Chu’s husband, I took out my old copy of the HKU Communications Directory, and looked for a R... Chan. There was one working in the Centre for Urban Planning and Environmental Management. So, I called his number - it was July or August, so I wasn’t expecting to get much more than a recorded message.
“Hello.”
“Morning. Could I speak to Carlye Chu, please?”
“May I know who’s calling?”
“May I know who’s calling?”, not “Sorry, wrong number”, or “Which department are you seeking?” or whatever. I was pretty sure I’d found my quarry: a tenured Associate Professor. But, always be sure. So I rang the departmental secretary and said I’d met this chap at a conference, but it was awfully embarrassing because I’d forgotten his name. Shared interest in pollution in the Pearl River Delta, etc etc.
“But, funny thing is, what I do remember is that he was married to a high court judge.”
“Oh, that’s Roger Chan.”
One of the key witnesses, as I have said, was the VP (Staffing). Roger’s boss.
When I was at Oregon State University, there was a guy who stood on the sidewalk for the 2 years I was there. He carried a big canvas with a long handwritten accusation “Dr. *** tells lies and derails and careers yadda yadda yadda.”
Currently, on my drive home from work there’s a guy who stands in front of the Baltimore Sun offices. He, too, carries a big sign, “The Sun Paper refuses to investigate yadda yadda yadda.”
I can’t get over how much of their lives they’ve wasted just because they felt slighted by something which was probably quite open to interpretation about who was in the right.
You sound like them. Maybe I’m wrong. Just saying, they popped into my mind when reading your story.
Anway, you kind of start this story at “sacked” and then tell us they forewent the “two-month observation”. How far off would I be to suggest that some of us would probably find your sacking justified?
That’s why I did it the proper way. The idea of standing outside Council meetings of HKU and handing out leaflets was one that crossed my mind, but I channelled my energy into doing the right thing. Not just for me, but for others who faced similar situations.
The observation period was something they came up with on the wing when they called me to a meeting and mooted the idea of my resigning, which I didn’t countenance.
Well, the defendant and the other 14 witnesses were united in agreeing, when things got to court and they had to swear an oath, that I had a case, as they refused to face cross-examination on their evidence. As for Amy’s lawyers, they actually withdrew the defence of *justification * (i.e. they admitted that what they had written was not true) as part of the settlement. That, and paying me money.
That is poorly worded. Should read:
“As for Amy’s lawyers, they actually withdrew the defence of *justification * (i.e. they admitted that what had been written by Amy in “the defamatory letter”, i.e. the letter she wrote to the VP, was not true) as part of the settlement. That, and paying me money.”