DEREK ACHONG

A for­mer Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) em­ploy­ee has been or­dered to re­pay a lit­tle over $326,353.22 to the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU).

CWU re­port­ed­ly paid Ani­ka Gas­pard’s $15,000 salary for al­most two years while it was pur­su­ing a case on her be­half against TSTT in the In­dus­tri­al Court.

The union claimed the pay­ments were made to al­le­vi­ate her hard­ship and based on the agree­ment that it was a loan that had to be re­paid if she was even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in the case and award­ed com­pen­sa­tion.

The union, through its lawyer Mar­tin George, sued Gas­pard, of Mootoo Lands, Ari­ma, af­ter she won the case and re­ceived $321,213.26 in com­pen­sa­tion but did not re­pay it.

In late Sep­tem­ber, High Court Karen Reid grant­ed the union a de­fault judg­ment af­ter Gas­pard failed to re­spond to the law­suit, which was served via a se­ries of ad­ver­tise­ments in a dai­ly news­pa­per.

Gas­pard, through her lawyers, sub­se­quent­ly sought to set aside the de­ci­sion.

They claimed that their client did not owe CWU as there was no bind­ing con­tract be­tween them.

Dur­ing a hear­ing, yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Reid dis­missed Gas­pard’s ap­pli­ca­tion.

She al­so or­dered that Gas­pard pay the union an ad­di­tion­al $12,000, which rep­re­sents its le­gal costs for the law­suit.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that CWU’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Joanne Ogeer was present in court for the out­come.