Justice M Nantha Balan said a three-member appeals court bench had, after due consideration, found no appealable error warranting intervention.
The bench also ordered Dr Marsita Mansor to pay Dr Arus Balasingam RM10,000 in costs.
“In our view, the trial judge had considered all the evidence and was fully entitled to reach his evaluating judgment as per the written grounds,” said Nantha Balan, who sat with Justices See Mee Chun and Azimah Omar.
Last year, Justice Nazlan Ghazali, then a High Court judge, awarded Arus RM80,000 in damages in a defamation suit brought against Marsita, a visiting obstetrics and gynaecology consultant.
Arus is a long-time resident consultant anaesthesiologist at the Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital in Kuala Lumpur.
Nantha Balan said the bench was not persuaded that Nazlan’s reasoning was wrong or flawed.
“Despite the tense circumstances in the operating theatre and in the nursing station around noon on Oct 18, 2018, the impugned word was uttered by the appellant (Marsita),” he said.
Nantha Balan said the bench took the view that Marsita’s use of the word “tamak” (greedy) to describe Arus was defamatory of him.
“This was compounded by the stand taken by (Marsita) during the trial. She maintained in her witness statement that (Arus) was unethical,” he said.
Marsita was scheduled to perform an operation at about 11.30am on Oct 18, 2018 but she did not show up on time. As a result, the surgery she was slated to perform had to be rescheduled.
In the meantime, to maximise the use of the operating theatre, Arus engaged in a short procedure for the patient of another doctor.
He said he had refused instructions from Marsita for her patient to be put under anaesthesia before her arrival.
That led Marsita to utter the word “tamak” in a manner that was clear and audible to the nurses present at the nurses’ station and operating theatre, the court found.
After the incident, Marsita insisted that another anaesthesiologist replace Arus for the surgery she was scheduled to perform as well as all her other cases.
Arus testified that he left the operating theatre so as not to aggravate an already tense situation.
In his judgment, Nazlan said the impugned word, uttered on two occasions, was capable of bearing a defamatory meaning considering Arus’ seniority, standing and reputation at the hospital.
He said the word in its ordinary meaning constituted a direct attack on Arus’ character, integrity and professionalism, and imputed that he was a dishonourable, unethical, unprofessional, selfish and irresponsible person.
Lawyer Manmohan Kang appeared for Arus, while counsel Noorazmir Zakaria and Hazeeq Fadzil represented Marsita.