Derek Achong

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing na­tion­al dis­cus-throw­er Quin­cy Wil­son and the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tors of T&T (NAAA TT) are in ne­go­ti­a­tions to set­tle his neg­li­gence claim over be­ing in­jured while par­tic­i­pat­ing at last year's Na­tion­al Open Se­nior Track and Field Cham­pi­onships at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

They in­di­cat­ed the po­si­tion as Wil­son's law­suit came up for case man­age­ment be­fore Jus­tice Na­dia Kan­ga­loo at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain on Mon­day morn­ing. 

Wil­son's lawyer Matthew Gayle said that while the par­ties are at a pre­lim­i­nary stage, he was hope­ful that the dis­pute would be re­solved with­in a few months. 

NAAA TT's lawyer Ty­rone Mar­cus ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments said he said: "It is the type of mat­ter we be­lieve can be re­solved."

Be­fore ad­journ­ing the case to May 22, Kan­ga­loo set dates for the par­ties to file ev­i­dence in the case, in the event that they are un­able to reach an agree­ment. 

In a law­suit filed in No­vem­ber, last year, Wil­son's lawyers claimed that as­so­ci­a­tion was re­spon­si­ble for the in­jury he sus­tained when he slipped and fell in the dis­cus cir­cle at the Hasley Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Port-of-Spain, while per­form­ing his fi­nal throw on Ju­ly 28, last year. 

Wil­son's lawyers claim that the as­so­ci­a­tion's em­ploy­ees paint­ed/or cov­ered the dis­cus cir­cle with a wrong sub­stance caus­ing it to be slip­pery.

They al­so con­tend that the as­so­ci­a­tion's em­ploy­ees al­so failed to prop­er­ly in­spect the cir­cle be­fore al­low­ing ath­let­ics to use it. 

In the le­gal doc­u­ments, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the lawyers claimed that the 28-year-old eight-time na­tion­al se­nior cham­pi­on, who holds the na­tion­al record of 59.65 me­tres, suf­fered a menis­cus tear to his right knee in the fall. 

Wil­son, who still man­aged to win the event with a pre­vi­ous score, on­ly dis­cov­ered the in­jury when he went for ran­dom drug test­ing af­ter the event. 

Wil­son's lawyers are con­tend­ing that in ad­di­tion to se­vere phys­i­cal pain, he has suf­fered ex­treme men­tal an­guish from the in­jury.

They al­so claimed that the in­jury af­fect­ed Wil­son's job prospects as he had re­cent­ly ap­plied and passed an in­ter­view to join the Prison Ser­vice and was wait­ing for a phys­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion and med­ical. 

In the law­suit, Wil­son is al­leg­ing that the in­jury has pre­clud­ed him from ac­cess­ing elite ath­lete fund­ing through the Min­istry of Sport and al­so pre­vent­ed him from work­ing at Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion for 23 days. 

If he is even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful, Wil­son is seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for his loss of in­come and for pri­vate re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive treat­ment, which he re­quires to ful­ly re­cov­er. 

Wil­son is al­so seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for his loss of op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete pro­fes­sion­al­ly and ob­tain spon­sor­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties. 

Wil­son is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dr Emir Crowne, Crys­tal Paul, Ker­ri­na Samdeo, and Ja­son Jones. NAAA TT was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Renu­ka Ram­dass.