JUDGMENTBY: WEE CHONG JIN CJ, TAN AH TAH AND BUTTROSE JJ

WEE CHONG JIN CJ This is an appeal from the judgment of Winslow J. in favour of the plaintiff in a claim for liquidated damages for breach of a contract of service.

The plaintiff, a doctor, was engaged by the defendants for a period of one year from 1st August 1961, the contract of service being contained in a letter from the defendants to the plaintiff in the following terms:--

July 20, 1961.

"Dear Dr. Chong,

This is to confirm your appointment as Assistant in this practice for

one year as from August 1, 1961, on the following terms:--

1. Salary: $ 1,750 per month.

Car allowance: $ 250 per month.

2. Termination of employment. This is to be by either party by three

months notice in writing to the other, provided always that in

the event of professional misconduct we may forthwith terminate

your employment without any notice or payment in lieu of notice.

Yours faithfully,

Signed:--

for Heron & Gethin-Jones."

On the 15th March 1962 he received a letter from the defendants dated 9th March 1962 to the effect that his services, owing to the uncertainty of future medical practice, would be terminated three months from the 15th March 1962. He wrote in reply a letter ante-dated to 10th March 1962 acknowledging the defendants letter and informing them that he would be taking the two weeks annual leave due to him as from 19th March 1962 in order to present himself as an applicant for two vacancies advertised in the Federation of Malaya. This reply was delivered on the 17th March, a Saturday. The same day he saw one of the partners in connection with the leave he wished to take and was referred to another partner, Dr. Heron whom he eventually saw about 1 p.m. that day.

What transpired at that interview with Dr. Heron was disputed at the trial but the learned judge accepted the plaintiffs account of it that Dr. Heron told him to clear out and never to come back when he insisted on taking his leave beginning from the following Monday i.e. 19th March. It was not in dispute that at the end of this interview Dr. Heron instructed an employee to requisition the medical bag allocated by the defendants for the plaintiffs use and to place it in Dr. Herons office when normally the plaintiff would have been allowed to take it home for outdoor visits over the weekend.

The next day i.e. 18th March the defendants arranged for another doctor to replace the plaintiff on the 19th March and the replacement duly reported for work on the morning of the 19th March. Also on the 18th a letter bearing that date but posted by registered post on the 19th was written by the defendants to the plaintiff informing him that if he failed to carry out his duties from the 19th onwards they would "treat such failure as a most serious breach of contract." That letter obviously could not reach the plaintiff in time for him to realise that, if the defendants meant what they said in that letter, the defendants considered him to be still in their employ up to the 19th March and that his future with them depended upon whether he turned up for work on the 19th or not. In fact the letter reached him on the 22nd March.

Meanwhile according to the plaintiff he decided to put off going to the Federation of Malaya owing to the turn of events and to report for work in the normal way on the 19th March.

Accordingly on the morning of the 19th a Monday at 8.30 a.m. he telephoned the welfare officer of the Singapore Harbour Board and asked if there was a doctor at the Singapore Harbour Board clinic where on Monday mornings he would normally go to attend to patients of the defendants. The welfare officer informed him that a Dr. Liow Yew Lee, a brother of a partner of the defendants, was there. The plaintiff thereupon went to the Raffles Place clinic of the defendants and asked for his medical bag but was told by the employees there, none o

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