Trinidad: Unicomer (Courts) ordered to pay $255,000 to pensioner

(Trinidad Guardian) A High Court judge has or­dered Uni­com­er (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed to pay more than $255,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a Freeport pen­sion­er who was in­con­ve­nienced by the com­pa­ny’s con­struc­tion of its head­quar­ters and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tre in 2017. 

In an oral judg­ment last week, Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams ruled that the com­pa­ny, which op­er­ates Courts, caused a nui­sance to Baldeo Mo­hans­ingh, of Cal­cut­ta Road, in Freeport. She or­dered the com­pa­ny to pay Mo­hans­ingh $15,000 in com­pen­sa­tion per day for the pe­ri­od Feb­ru­ary 24 to March 12, 2017. 

 
She al­so or­dered that the com­pa­ny pay two per cent in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion un­til it is cleared and or­dered that it pay Mo­hans­ingh’s $35, 437.55 in le­gal costs. 

In his law­suit, Mo­hans­ingh claimed he and his fam­i­ly were grant­ed road ac­cess to their prop­er­ty when they first pur­chased the land and con­struct­ed their home in 1983. He claimed the com­pa­ny in­fringed on his ac­cess when it be­gan build­ing a wall around its fa­cil­i­ty which bor­ders his land. He al­so claimed he was se­vere­ly af­fect­ed when the com­pa­ny start­ed de­vel­op­ing the road re­serve to gain ac­cess to its prop­er­ty. 

Mo­hans­ingh claimed that while he was in ne­go­ti­a­tions with the com­pa­ny over the is­sue, it went ahead with the work. He al­so claimed the work caused dam­age to his prop­er­ty and the con­stant vi­bra­tions and drilling caused tiles in his house to shat­ter. 

How­ev­er, Quin­lan-Williams on­ly up­held his claims over the nui­sance caused dur­ing con­struc­tion and not for the prop­er­ty dam­ages claimed. The com­pa­ny filed a counter-claim against Mo­hans­ingh al­leg­ing that he di­vert­ed drains from his prop­er­ty to the con­struc­tion site and un­der­mined the work.

In dis­miss­ing its claim for $217,115 in com­pen­sa­tion, Quin­lan-Williams ruled that the com­pa­ny did not pro­vide suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to but­tress its claim against Mo­hans­ingh. 

Mo­hans­ingh was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Alvin Pariags­ingh, Che Din­di­al, and Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell. Uni­com­er was rep­re­sent­ed by Colvin Blaze, Alexi Mc Kell, Je­u­nille Transcoso-Black­man and Mau­rice Fer­min.