2 men lose in Privy Council

TWO men from Penal who sought compensation for injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident 30 years ago, have lost their lawsuit against Motor One Insurance Company Ltd. In an eight-page ruling, five Privy Council judges dismissed the appeal of Rampersad and Radesh Maharaj against the insurance company.

Lord Nicholas Wilson, who wrote the decision, agreed with the local Court of Appeal that the men’s claim, seeking compensation from the company based on liability of the driver, who collided with them, was statue-barred under the Limitation of Certain Actions Act. In dismissing the appeal, the court ordered the two to pay Motor One’s legal costs for defending the case.

In the ruling, Wilson said while the constitutional right of litigants to appeal, in some cases without the permission of the local appellate court was “precious,” in recent times the London court had been receiving a number of frivolous appeals, including this one.

He pointed out: “Had the Court of Appeal and the Board been able to rule that the appeal of the present claimants to the Board was (as is the case) unarguable and so should not be submitted to the Board, the burden of costs upon them as a result of this appeal would have been greatly reduced.”

The two men were riding the motorcycle near their homes on August 1, 1988, when they got into an accident with a car driven by Mikey Parmashwar. They sued Parmashwar in 1990, but owing to delays in the justice system, they only received judgement in their favour in 1998. Their compensation was assessed at almost $900,000 in 2005. The figure stood at $2,331,009 in 2013, as they were granted 12 per cent interest on the judgement.

However, Parmashwar has never paid. In 2013, the relatives sued the insurance company under Section 10 of the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third Party Risks) Act to seek to recoup some of the money, as the vehicle Parmashwar was driving was insured with it. They were initially allowed to proceed with the claim before the Court of Appeal ruled that it was filed outside the statutory limit.

In its judgement, the Privy Council suggested that it should have been filed within four years of their obtaining judgement against Parmashwar in 1998, or when the damages were assessed in 2005. “The Board is clear that the action brought by the claimants under section 10(1) of the Insurance Act is an action to ‘recover [a] sum recoverable by virtue of [an] enactment’ within the meaning of section 3(1)(c) of the Limitation Act and that, subject to any postponement of the limitation period of four years there set, it is thus time barred.

The two men were represented by Reeyah Chattergoon, Taureen Dassyne and Prakash Maharaj, while Shawn Roopnarine, Helen Lochan and Shanta Balgobin represented Motor One.