Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, Advisor to the Minister of Health, is seeking to set aside a default judgment granted against him in the $185 million libel suit brought by former General Manager of the National Communications Network (NCN) Enrico Woolford.
Back in August, Justice Fidela Corbin-Lincoln granted Woolford judgment in default for Ramsammy’s failure to file a defence in the claim for libel against him. The Court has not yet assessed damages.
Woolford earlier this year sued Ramsammy, the Guyana Times newspaper and the Times Media Group jointly and severally, seeking in excess of $185 million in total for libelous statements about him that he said were contained in a column by Ramsammy that was published by the Guyana Times newspaper on March 18, 2020, under the headline “Ramsammy’s Ruminations: Caricom, ABCE, Commonwealth, OAS – time for sanctions now, no more patience.”
Asking that he now be permitted to file a defence, Ramsammy in his application to set aside the default judgment is claiming that he was unaware of Woolford’s action against him, since he was never personally served.
He noted that while court records reflect the several attempts made at effecting service on him, the exercise was unsuccessful for one reason or the other, which resulted in him never being personally served.
Ramsammy also referenced Woolford’s attempt at substituted notice of service by placing advertisements in the Stabroek News.
His explanation for being unaware of service through this medium, however, is that he does not subscribe to the actual delivery of newspapers to his home or office, since he is of the view that “the newspapers themselves are sources of infection” of the coronavirus.
He went on to add that he was unaware of the advertisements placed in the newspapers, because of his “busy schedule.”
Ramsammy’s ultimate contention is that his failure to file a defence, is because he was never personally served with Woolford’s claim, stating that he was only “recently” advised by his attorney Nirvan Singh, that advertisements had actually been placed in the Stabroek News and that a default judgment had been granted against him.
Ramsammy says that he has every intention of defending himself against the claim, and is contending that his intended defence has real prospects of success.
Following the grant of the default judgment, Woolford’s attorney, Eusi Anderson, had said that his client tried to bring the proceedings to Ramsammy’s attention, both through personal service and substituted service but in both situations incurred tremendous expense.
Contending that Ramsammy had been “evading service by concealing himself in his home and office,” however, Woolford had advanced through his attorney, that it was within the Court’s discretion to dispense with personal service and order substituted service.
Ramsammy has since contended that the words complained of by Woolford were an “expression of his honestly held opinion and were fair comment on a matter of public interest.”
Woolford, however, describes Ramsammy’s purported defence as amounting to “baseless lies.”
Woolford, who described himself in his statement of claim as a media and communications professional for over 30 years with international, regional and local repute, had sought a total of over $85 million in damages from Ramsammy for the print and online publications containing the statements made about him as well as $50 million in damages from the newspaper and the Times Group for same.
In addition to damages, Woolford also sought a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from not only again publishing the offensive words, but any other words/statements of a similar nature which are defamatory of him.
He also sought to have the court grant a mandatory injunction compelling the defendants to forthwith permanently remove the column in question, from the online edition of Guyana Times newspapers and for them to publish a retraction and apology.
Woolford said that the statements in the column were false, malicious, defamatory, and impugn his character and reputation.
