Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A man has been giv­en a life­line in his bid to pur­sue a law­suit over a crash that claimed the lives of his par­ents and old­er broth­er when he and an­oth­er broth­er were chil­dren.

In a de­ci­sion de­liv­ered yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed an ap­pli­ca­tion by B.K. Hold­ings Lim­it­ed to dis­miss Nigel Ram­cha­ran’s claim on the ba­sis it was filed out­side the four-year statu­to­ry lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od.

The case stems from a mo­tor ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dent on Ju­ly 29, 2014. Ram­cha­ran’s 47-year-old fa­ther, Ma­hadeo, his 36-year-old moth­er, Nan­da, and his 13-year-old broth­er, Ny­ron, were re­turn­ing to their Pe­nal home af­ter the teenag­er un­der­went dial­y­sis treat­ment at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope.

The fam­i­ly was trav­el­ling south along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way near Ch­agua­nas when a ve­hi­cle trav­el­ling in the op­po­site di­rec­tion crossed the me­di­an and land­ed on top of their Hon­da Civic.

The dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle lost con­trol of his Mit­subishi Lancer af­ter it col­lid­ed with a garbage truck owned by B.K. Hold­ings.

In March 2018, Ram­cha­ran’s oth­er broth­er, Rikash, filed a law­suit against the own­er of the Mit­subishi Lancer, who in turn brought third-par­ty pro­ceed­ings against B.K. Hold­ings and its dri­ver, David Di­az.

Rikash’s claim was stayed pend­ing the out­come of the lit­i­ga­tion be­tween the ve­hi­cle own­er and the com­pa­ny.

In March 2024, then High Court judge, now Court of Ap­peal Jus­tice Joan Charles, found B.K. Hold­ings and Di­az li­able for the ac­ci­dent. Months lat­er, Rikash with­drew his claim against the ve­hi­cle own­er.

Ram­cha­ran, who was 12 years old at the time of the fa­tal crash, then filed a fresh claim against the com­pa­ny and Di­az.

The com­pa­ny chal­lenged his right to pur­sue the claim, ar­gu­ing that it had been filed out­side the four-year lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od pre­scribed un­der the Lim­i­ta­tion of Cer­tain Ac­tions Act.

In con­sid­er­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ac­cept­ed that the claim had been filed out­side the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od, even af­ter ac­count­ing for the ex­ten­sion grant­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

He sug­gest­ed that Rikash should have amend­ed his orig­i­nal claim be­cause he was aware of the par­al­lel pro­ceed­ings against the com­pa­ny and its dri­ver but had not re­ceived com­pe­tent le­gal ad­vice.

“It is rea­son­able to con­clude that Rikash, as a young man who had suf­fered an im­mea­sur­able loss, would have re­lied heav­i­ly up­on the ad­vice prof­fered by his at­tor­neys-at-law and, in this case, it ap­pears that that ad­vice was se­ri­ous­ly want­i­ng,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

He found there were valid grounds to ex­er­cise the court’s dis­cre­tion to ex­tend the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od.

“It can­not be de­nied that this claimant moved ex­pe­di­tious­ly,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said, not­ing Ram­cha­ran filed his claim 23 days af­ter his broth­er with­drew the ear­li­er case.

“The rea­son­ing prof­fered for the de­lay is nei­ther fan­ci­ful nor il­log­i­cal and the de­lay oc­curred due, pri­mar­i­ly, to the poor le­gal ad­vice which was giv­en to young and vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple who both suf­fered unimag­in­able loss­es,” he added.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so held that the com­pa­ny would not be prej­u­diced if the claim were al­lowed to pro­ceed.

Fol­low­ing his rul­ing, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad gave di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of ev­i­dence and ad­journed the mat­ter to late Sep­tem­ber.

Ram­cha­ran was rep­re­sent­ed by Shawn Roop­nar­ine and Bha­cepat­ti Singh. B.K. Hold­ings and Di­az were rep­re­sent­ed by Ke­ston Mc­Quilkin and Saa­ji­da Mo­ham­dal­ly.