Judge orders $10k damages award to Pinay singer

Immigration Tower in Wan Chai

A District Court judge dismissed the bid of a Chinese vocal coach to revisit an earlier ruling ordering him to pay $10,000 in damages to a Filipino vocal teacher.

In a 12-page decision, Deputy District Court Judge Ho Wai-yang said there was no basis to the four grounds submitted by defendant Choi Jeffrey Tse-fu to appeal her February 5, 2016 judgment ordering him to pay $10,000 to Christine Diaz, also known as Christine Samson.

Judge Ho said she did not find “any reasonable prospect of success on these intended grounds of appeal.”

In seeking a leave to appeal against the judgment, Choi said Judge Ho made a wrong assessment of damages; erred in holding that the statements were defamatory; erred in inferring malice;  and erred in granting the injunction.

The case stemmed from a recording of the lesson Choi, a certified Speech Level Singing instructor from 2010 to 2013, gave to his student, Karen, on August 27, 2012, where he referred to Diaz in the latter part of his lecture to the student after labeling as “elderly teachers” or “those who received their teaching from teachers who had not been privy to the scientific methods of vocal training.”

Choi, who started his vocal training career in 2010, also specifically said that scientific techniques were only developed in the last 30 years, and that while elderly teachers may have the correct concept, their way or technique is wrong.

Before beginning her career as a vocal instructor in 1990, Diaz was a professional singer, having been a member of bands since 1965.

From 2004 to 2009, Diaz was also a certified SLS instructor. She has also developed her own method of vocal training and named it the “Samson’s Vocal Technique”.

In January 2013, Diaz and her staff received an email from Fiiona Fu with a copy of the edited recording of Choi’s lecture to Karen attached. It was also subsequently discovered that the edited recording is an edited version of an original recording.

In his defense, Choi said the reference to Diaz was only to explain what a “light mix” voice sounds like, citing artists Michael Jackson, Sandy Lam Yik Leen, Faye Wong, and Bee Gees as artists with a light voice.

Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, on the other hand, were mentioned as those who have a “chest mixed voice”.

In the original judgment, Judge Ho said she found that Choi’s remarks were “derogatory in nature”, “lack factual basis”, and that there was a “lack of necessity for making such statements in providing an explanation to mixed voices.”

“I find the dominate improper motive of Mr. Choi’s statements was to disparage the teaching method of ‘elderly teachers’, those from Berkeley/Berklee, and Ms Diaz by associating her with the ‘elderly teachers’ and those from Berkeley/Berklee,” Judge Ho then said.