Appeal court insists man let sleeping dogs lie
A South Korean lawyer whose pet shih tzu was killed by a neighbour's dogs in Sai Kung has lost yet another court case over the incident.
Eugene Jae-hoon Oh had been seeking leave to appeal to the top court to overturn a lower court's decision to throw out a civil lawsuit against the neighbour, Kate Richdale, alleging malicious prosecution in connection with an assault charge of which he was acquitted.
But a full bench of the Court of Appeal dismissed the application without even hearing from Ms Richdale's counsel.
Mr Oh's counsel, Martin Lee Chu-ming SC, had argued that the justices erred in October when they dismissed an appeal against the striking out by the Court of First Instance of the suit by Mr Oh, 45, and his wife, Grace Chin, for malicious prosecution and damages of $3 million.
Mr Oh alleged Ms Richdale had lied about the alleged assault outside her home in Wo Tong Kong on September 9, 2000. That alleged lie, he claimed, had so swayed the thinking of the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions that they had embarked on an utterly baseless and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to convict him of assault.
Though Mr Oh was cleared of assaulting Ms Richdale, he was convicted of assaulting her helper and of criminal damage in relation to stones being thrown as a maid walked Ms Richdale's dogs.
The lower court had struck out the malicious prosecution case as being impossible to prove. But Mr Lee contended that Ms Richdale, by telling police what could have been 'a pack of lies', had been the instigator of the prosecution.
'If an investigation is based on a lie, then it cannot be termed an independent exercise of [police] discretion,' Mr Lee said. As a result, the malicious prosecution case should have continued.
In August, Mr Oh lost a bid to sue Ms Richdale for $20 million for the loss of his pet.
Note: The 2001 convictions referred to in this story are now spent.
