Squatter to sue State over damaged property from Sando By-Pass
A High Court judge refused to strike out a squatter’s case over alleged water damage from the San Fernando By-Pass.
Derek Achong Se-nior Re-porter A man from San Fer-nan-do, whose fam-i-ly has been squat-ting on State land for over 75 years, has scored a le-gal vic-to-ry in his bid to pur-sue a law-suit over dam-age to the prop-er-ty caused by wa-ter from a ma-jor road.. In a pre-lim-i-nary de-ci-sion last week, High Court Judge Robin Mo-hammed dis-missed an ap-pli-ca-tion from the Of-fice of the At-tor-ney Gen-er-al to strike out the tres-pass and nui-sance case brought
by Pat-ter-son Nel-son.. The law-suit re-lates to a prop-er-ty at Co-coyea Vil-lage, San Fer-nan-do, that Nel-son claimed he and his fa-ther had been in undis-turbed and ex-clu-sive oc-cu-pa-tion of for al-most eight decades.. Nel-son claimed that since 2015, the prop-er-ty had been af-fect-ed by sur-face and sub-sur-face run-off from the San Fer-nan-do By-Pass, which is lo-cat-ed up-hill from it.. He claimed that the wa-ter caused dam-age, in-clud-ing tilt-ing of the perime-ter fence, wa-ter leaks through
the re-tain-ing wall, and cracks in the house on the prop-er-ty.. In de-fence of the law-suit, the AG’s Of-fice claimed that the case was an abuse of process.. It al-leged that he did not have le-gal stand-ing to pur-sue the lit-i-ga-tion as he did not have ti-tle to the land and did not seek plan-ning per-mis-sion be-fore con-struct-ing the house.. It al-so al-leged the case was filed out-side the statu-to-ry lim-it, as it should have
been ini-ti-at-ed with-in four years of the wa-ter dam-age be-ing dis-cov-ered.. In re-ject-ing the ap-pli-ca-tion, Jus-tice Mo-hammed found that Nel-son had raised a valid le-gal chal-lenge that had to be de-cid-ed af-ter a tri-al.. “In the in-stant case, the Claimant has ad-vanced a co-her-ent fac-tu-al nar-ra-tive, sup-port-ed by con-tem-po-ra-ne-ous doc-u-ments, which he con-tends gives rise to recog-nised caus-es of ac-tion,” Jus-tice Mo-hammed said, as he not-ed that there was no ev-i-dence that Nel-son was act-ing
out of spite or for an im-prop-er mo-tive.. Jus-tice Mo-hammed point-ed out that Nel-son’s claim to the land could be de-ter-mined af-ter all the ev-i-dence from both sides is analysed.. “Whether his pos-ses-sion is proven and whether the State’s claim to the land ex-tin-guish-es any pos-ses-so-ry right are not ques-tions that can be de-cid-ed at a strike-out hear-ing,” he said.. Deal-ing with the de-lay, Jus-tice Mo-hammed not-ed that Nel-son’s case was based on con-tin-u-ing tres-pass/nui-sance,
which he al-leges still per-sists.. In terms of the lack of plan-ning per-mis-sion, Jus-tice Mo-hammed said that it would be un-fair to de-lay his claim based on a reg-u-la-to-ry breach.. “The con-se-quence sought by the De-fen-dant, that is, ex-tin-guish-ing a claim for dam-age to a home al-leged-ly caused by pub-lic in-fra-struc-ture, would be dis-pro-por-tion-ate,” Jus-tice Mo-hammed said.. As part of his de-ci-sion, Jus-tice Mo-hammed ex-tend-ed the time for the State to file its sub-stan-tive de-fence
to the law-suit.. Nel-son was rep-re-sent-ed by Mustapha Khan and Hans Man-war-ing, while Tri-cia Ram-lo-gan and Mur-vani Ojah-Ma-haraj rep-re-sent-ed the AG’s Of-fice.
High Court Trinidad, San Fernando By-Pass, property damage lawsuit, squatter land dispute, trespass and nuisance, Attorney General strike-out, Robin Mohammed ruling