Recently, I lost a law suit in Workman Compensation case and demanded to pay up a sum close to $20K for a guy's cut finger.
The Story begin that this guy had ever work as a casual labour before with me. As the work requirement, I needed some temporary worker for a project and this guy turn up at my carpentry factory again through his friend. I was not at the office during that time and my foreman inform me of his present. So I told my foreman to test him out his skill to construct a special fixture. Unfortunately, he cut his left thumb few hours later and was sent to the Tan Tock Seng Hospital at about 3pm. Doctor said he need to admit for observation. The hospital insist that this is an industrial accident and under the law, they need to put him under Ward B1 and above. I was forced to sign the admission letter, however, refuse to fill in the column for employer as he was hired at the point of time; at most under interview and testing. So the admission officer interviewed him and he had also admit that it was a personal accident and was downgraded to Class C. A year later, he filed the claim with MOM against me. However, he could not provide much information to the MOM as he is not an employee yet neither can he tell the officer the company name nor the staff working with me. Much information was provided later, when MOM wrote to me and I informed them about the whole true inccident.
Regrettedly, I should have ignore the letters totally as no company name nor the addressee is named. But I'm trying to co-operate with them but at the end got myself into all these trouble.
I wrote to MOM to appeal the case and telling them I have no money nor capability to pay at the moment. I've also listed 4 pages of my questions about the judgments passed which are totally unreasonable. The reply from MOM was something like" we regretted to hear that you are unable to pay the sum but you still need to deposit the sum before the appeal".
Question 1 : If I have the money to pay, I would have deposited it and proceed for the appeal then to take trouble writing 4 pages of letters to them.
Question 2 : Why not even a single of my questions being answered? If the judgment is fair, why are they not replying official and make me accept the facts? Are they trying to cover up for each others mistake?
I responded to their letter again. I told them the same I wrote here. The question is that I told them I could not get the evident from the hospital as the status was under personal accident, I need the patient consent. Which this is a very important evidence, I requested them to check with the hospital. If proven my statement is true, I proposed to allow me to grant me permission to appeal the case without depositing the sum. I just want a fair judgment. If I ever make bankrupt because of this, and down the road, I have the capability to appeal the case, how are they going to return all the properties they have seized, clean up my name for what they have tarnished, and the damage and hurts to my family and myself? Can I seek legal compensation from MOM's commissioner and the officers in charge if the case proven I am true? Aren't they trying to create another set of family and social problem when they are given the opportunity to redress the case? What's so difficult to pick up the telephone and call the hospital to verify the case? Perhap, everything is just administrative; they just need to read out the laws and record from their book.
