DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A busi­ness­man from San Juan has won his neg­li­gence law­suit against the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) over dam­age to his busi­ness caused by a faulty sew­er pipeline al­most four years ago.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day up­held Matthew Ed­wards’ claim against the pub­lic util­i­ty in a judg­ment de­liv­ered a lit­tle over a week af­ter he presided over a tri­al.

In his case, Ed­wards, who op­er­ates a store sell­ing pi­rat­ed DVDs, com­put­er parts, toys and ice cream at a rent­ed build­ing in San Juan, claimed that the is­sue with WASA’s sew­er pipeline arose in late Oc­to­ber 2021.

He claimed that he no­ticed wa­ter and sew­er­age over­flow­ing from the toi­let at the prop­er­ty.

Ed­wards ini­tial­ly be­lieved that the toi­let was clogged and sought to rec­ti­fy it us­ing a rub­ber plunger.

His land­lord came to his as­sis­tance af­ter his at­tempts to stop the flow failed.

He claimed that they even­tu­al­ly cut the PVC pipe con­nect­ing the build­ing’s sew­er sys­tem to the WASA sew­er pipeline, which runs un­der­ground along the East­ern Main Road.

Ed­wards claimed that his busi­ness suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant dam­age as it was flood­ed with sew­er­age be­fore he and his land­lord were able to im­ple­ment the tem­po­rary so­lu­tion.

Sev­er­al re­ports were made to WASA, which took 45 days to rec­ti­fy the is­sue with its pipeline.

Ed­wards claimed that he lost al­most $60,000 in stock and spent al­most $3,000 clean­ing the busi­ness.

He al­so claimed that he lost over $20,000 in prof­its as he was forced to close his busi­ness un­til the is­sue with the sew­er pipeline was ad­dressed by WASA.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that the au­thor­i­ty has a statu­to­ry du­ty over the sew­er main and Ed­wards was not pre­clud­ed from bring­ing such a law­suit by the pro­vi­sions of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Act.

“The Court is res­olute in its view that the statute is not in­tend­ed to ex­clude com­mon law to li­a­bil­i­ty for the dam­age caused by WASA for a fail­ure to main­tain and/or re­pair its sew­er mains,” he said.

Stat­ing that WASA has a du­ty of care to prop­er­ty own­ers af­fect­ed by its in­stal­la­tions, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad point­ed out that it ad­mit­ted that the sew­er main was very old and past its lifes­pan.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ex­pressed con­cern over WASA’s fail­ure to re­place the sew­er main based on its ad­mis­sions over its state.

“The Court is filled with a feel­ing of dread as this main may be a tick­ing sew­er bomb and presents a clear and present dan­ger,” he said, as the judge ques­tioned the con­di­tion of sim­i­lar mains in the coun­try’s cities.

“The De­fen­dant should there­fore, as a mat­ter of ur­gency, con­sid­er the en­gage­ment of a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the na­tion’s sew­er sys­tems and aged mains should be quick­ly re­placed so as to avert an im­pend­ing health and en­vi­ron­ment cri­sis,” he added.

He al­so called on WASA to take a more proac­tive ap­proach.

“WASA can­not be an acronym for wa­ver­ing, ap­a­thet­ic, supine or at­roph­ic in­stead it must stand for an ap­proach which is wil­ful, at­ten­tive, strate­gic, and alert,” he said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so re­ject­ed WASA’s claim that its de­lay in ad­dress­ing the is­sue was due to its staff be­ing pre­oc­cu­pied with a ma­jor project to reroute wa­ter main pipelines in Beetham Gar­dens.

“If such a po­si­tion were to be ac­cept­ed then this Re­pub­lic should be clas­si­fied as a failed State,” he said.

Al­though Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that WASA was neg­li­gent and com­mit­ted a nui­sance by fail­ing to main­tain the sew­er main, he did not im­me­di­ate­ly as­sess the com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to Ed­wards.

The com­pen­sa­tion is to be as­sessed by a High Court Mas­ter at a lat­er date.

Ed­wards was rep­re­sent­ed by Javier For­rester, while Kirk Ben­gochea rep­re­sent­ed WASA.