20-year fight over estate: Judge chides Briton for 'epic' 271-page statement
06 Jul 2011
SOURCE: The Straits Times
After 20 years spent locked in court battles over her late father-in-law’s estate, Englishwoman Jane Rebecca Ong is still no closer to the finish line.
In the latest twist, a judge criticised her for submitting a 271-page statement setting out her case – thought to be the longest report ever filed in a civil suit in Singapore.
Mrs Ong, 50, began her litigation in 1991, when she sued the family of her estranged Indonesian husband for her share of the estate left behind by her father-in-law Ong Seng Keng.
She hired experts who assessed the estate to be worth more than $250 million. But a 2002 court inquiry valued it at only $28 million.
Mrs Ong, who is based in London, was awarded about $3.2 million of this. It is not known if she has received the payment.
She is now suing the accountants and lawyers who advised her, claiming they were negligent.
But Justice Choo Han Teck of the High Court took issue with the length of her statement of claim, which she wrote herself.
He suggested lawyers could have said the same thing in 20 pages or less.
The judge also asked whether the statement of claims was verbose or necessary.
“Must a statement setting out the facts that support a cause or even several causes of action require hundreds of paragraphs and pages?” he said in judgment grounds released on Monday.
But that did not stop Justice Choo from ruling against lawyers from Rajah & Tann, who sought to strike out parts of her claim.
He said they had missed a deadline imposed by a High Court assistant registrar.
None of the three defendants was named in the judgment.
The judge said the “most expedient way to bring the suit to a speedy conclusion may be to proceed to trial with the least distraction”.
Noting that this was a bulky claim which was scheduled to be heard over weeks, he made it clear that “minor skirmishes ought to be avoided either if they can be more quickly fought as part of the main battle at trial, or where victory would be merely pyrrhic”.
He likened Mrs Ong to a modern-day version of Odysseus, the ancient Greek hero who took a decade to return home after the Trojan War.
“Odysseus returned to Ithaca after 10 years. The plaintiff has taken twice as long, and is no nearer home,” he said.
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