Man sues woman who rejected him for $3m over ‘emotional trauma’

The man also filed a $22,000 lawsuit against the woman for allegedly breaching their agreement about their relationship

A man in Singapore has sued a woman who rejected him for $3m, claiming that she caused emotional “trauma” to his life.

The man, Mr K. Kawshigan, filed his lawsuit against Ms Nora Tan after she told him she wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship with him, according to Singapore-based newspaper The Straits Times.

The publication reported that Kawshigan filed two lawusuits against her, including a $3 million High Court claim that alleged the woman caused “damage to his stellar reputation” and “trauma, depression and impacts” to his life.

He claimed that due to the remarks she made, he lost earnings from his business partnerships and had to pay high costs for therapy in order to overcome his trauma.

The second lawsuit was a $22,000 magistrate’s court claim in which Kawshigan alleged that Tan had breached their agreement about working on their relationship.

He claimed that the breach had negatively impacted the earnings he’d received as an “active high-capital trader by night and a busy CEO by day”. He also alleged that the breach required him to look for “deeper psychological assistance”.

The $22,000 claim was struck out earlier this month by State Courts deputy registrar Lewis Tan, who expressed that Kawshigan’s claim was “manifestly groundless and without foundation,” per The Straits Times.

His judgment was published earlier this week, in which he said: “Considered in totality, I find that the present action was intentionally initiated by the claimant with the ulterior motive of vexing or oppressing the defendant by requiring her to defend various claims that fundamentally stem from the same factual matrix in different forums.”

“This court will not be an accessory to his calculated attempt to compel engagement from the defendant who, after years of massaging the claimant’s unhappiness, has finally decided to stand up to his threats rather than cower and give in to his demands,” he added.

The magazine noted that Kawshigan and Tan first met in 2016 and then became friends. In September 2020, their friendship changed, with Tan regarding her peer as a “friend” while Kawshigan considered her his “closest friend”.

Tan then told him that she needed to distance herself from the friendship and encouraged him to be “self-reliant”. That following month, Kawshigan sent her a letter and threatened to file a lawsuit with a claim for “monetary damages arising from negligent infliction of emotional distress and possible defamation,” as reported by Straits Times.

Although Tan tried to have a conversation, Kawshigan told her she either had to meet his demands or face “irrevocable” damage to her professional reputation. Kawshigan’s counsellor also reached out to Tan and asked her to be a part of his sessions, which he agreed to.

However, a year and a half later, she stopped going to the sessions. She started her harassment proceedings against him in April 2022.

The magazine went on to note that after multiple conversations, Tam cut contact with Kawshigan in May of that year because she realised that he couldn’t respect her request for boundaries.

Kawshigan filed his $3m claim against her in July before filing his $22,000 claim in August. Tan has applied to strike out the $3m claim, with a pre-trial hearing set for 9 February, according to Straits Times.