Justice Vinodh Coomaraswamy said the claimant, Durairaj Santiran, was not a credible witness on account of several variances between his pleaded case, his evidence-in-chief, and his testimony under cross-examination.

“These variances are one reason why I reject the claimant’s case as to why he fell.”

On Sept 6, 2019, Durairaj, a galley steward on an inbound flight from San Francisco, suffered injuries to his spine after he slipped and fell at his work area.

He claimed the airline had breached its duty to provide him with a safe place and system of work, resulting in loss and damage, including almost S$700,000 in future earnings.

However, in a 54-page judgment released on Friday, the judge said Durairaj, whose duties included ensuring that the galley was dry and clean, had failed to discharge the burden of proving that its floor was slippery.

“I find that no foreign substance was present on the surface of the galley floor that rendered it slippery.

“I make that finding for three reasons: the claimant is not a credible witness; the defendant’s witnesses are credible witnesses; and the defendant’s contemporaneous documents provide no support for the claimant’s case,” the judgment read.

Coomaraswamy noted that, during cross-examination, Durairaj had “for the first time” claimed he had cleaned a grease patch prior to takeoff, without escalating the issue to his superior, Christina Chia, the leading stewardess.

The judge said Durairaj had put forward a different version when he commenced his lawsuit.

“The claimant pleaded in his statement of claim that he had told Chia about a ‘grease patch’ on the floor of the galley ‘immediately’ upon finding it.

“The variance is self-serving because it shows that (the claimant) had complied with the (airline’s) safety training by attempting to resolve the issue himself before escalating it to Chia,” the judgment read.

The judge also found other variances in Durairaj’s testimony.

These concerned whether the grease patch remained visible after Durairaj attempted to clean it off, the actual number of attempts he made to remove it, and whether it continued to be “shiny” and “visible” to the rest of the crew despite the cleaning.

Coomaraswamy said the gist of Durairaj’s case had changed by the time he closed his case.

“(It was) no longer that he slipped on a ‘patch of grease’ on the galley floor but that he slipped on an invisible, slippery area on the galley floor that was left behind after he had ‘removed’ a ‘patch of grease’ there.”

“The self-serving nature of these variances is another reason I find the claimant not to be a credible witness,” the judgment read.

Coomaraswamy said the variances suggested that Durairaj was seeking to align his evidence with the testimony given in court by other members of the flight crew.

Durairaj was also looking to “enlarge the role that (he) played in attempting to resolve the issue”, the judge said.

In contrast, the airline’s witnesses testified that no one else fell in the galley during the flight, said Coomaraswamy.

“This suggests that (Durairaj) fell as a result of an idiosyncratic risk factor, such as his footwear, rather than as a result of a universal risk factor, i.e. one that created a risk of falling for everyone, such as an invisible, slippery area on the galley floor.”

The judge also found that there was sufficient evidence to show that a safe system of work was in place.

“The evidence satisfied me that the (airline’s) training and follow-up measures have been effective virtually to eliminate the risk of slips and falls on board the defendant’s aircraft.

“It is because of this strong culture of safety that slips and falls on board the defendant’s aircraft are extremely rare,” said Coomaraswamy.

Durairaj joined the airline on a five-year contract in 2016.

He suffered six prior workplace injuries, including two for which he was awarded a total of S$117,900 in compensation, and was on medical leave for a total of 603 days between Jan 2018 and April 10, 2021, when his contract expired.

In April 2018, the airline paid S$41,000 for surgery on his spine after he slipped and fell from a staircase when exiting the crew bunk. He was grounded following this injury but was certified fit to fly later that same year.

Singapore Airlines was represented by Niru Pillai, Liew Teck Huat, Phang Cunkuang and Brenda Tay, of Niru & Co, LLC.

Durairaj was represented by Ramasamy K Chettiar and Mark Ho of Central Chambers Law Corporation, and Manickam Kasturibai of East Asia Law Corporation.