Celebrity English tutor Karson Oten Fan Karno has lost an appeal against his former employer, a tutoring centre to which he was earlier ordered to pay damages of HK$8.88 million for breach of contract.
The teacher, known as K.Oten, lodged an appeal against the earlier ruling at the Court of Appeal yesterday, but it was dismissed.
After the ruling, Fan said outside court that he would not appeal, adding that he was not in a good mood.
Fan was earlier told by the Court of First Instance to pay damages to King's Glory Educational Centre after it found he had repeatedly breached its contract terms since November 2004 before he left the school in May 2006. The centre had terminated his contract, signed in 2003, in April 2006, saying his conduct amounted to a repudiation of it.
The court found in collecting students' personal data, publishing advertisements with misleading claims, showing students examination marking schemes and teaching online classes without the school's consent, he had broken his contract with King's Glory. He had also breached the contract by taking a job at another school within a year after leaving.
Yesterday, Fan, through his lawyer Philip Dykes, claimed the stipulations he had allegedly breached were not conditions. But King's Glory said the issue of whether they were contract conditions had already been canvassed - by the judge who gave the order to pay damages. The hearing was before Mr Justice Anthony Rogers, Madam Justice Doreen Le Pichon, and Mr Justice William Stone.