Derek Achong

A se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny has lost its bid to in­crease the $278,000 in com­pen­sa­tion it re­ceived for the loss of use of a firearm, that was seized by po­lice for six years af­ter be­ing dis­charged by one of its em­ploy­ees. 

De­liv­er­ing an oral judge­ment at the end of a brief vir­tu­al ap­peal on Fri­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Gre­go­ry Smith, Mal­colm Holdip, and Vasheist Kokaram dis­missed Alphe­ga Se­cu­ri­ty Lim­it­ed’s ap­peal over the com­pen­sa­tion as­sessed by High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der in their case. 

Smith, who de­liv­ered the judge­ment, point­ed out that Alexan­der’s as­sess­ment could not be over­turned as the com­pa­ny’s claim for al­most $2 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion was “far-fetched” as it did not pro­vide suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to but­tress its claims. 

Smith point­ed out that while the com­pa­ny claimed that it should be com­pen­sat­ed based on the hourly rate it would have earned if it had the firearm to as­sign one of its se­cu­ri­ty guards, he not­ed that it on­ly pro­vide ev­i­dence of short-term con­tracts dur­ing the pe­ri­od. 

He al­so not­ed that while the com­pa­ny made its claim on the in­come it would have pos­si­bly earned, it should have been based on its po­ten­tial prof­its. 

As part of its de­ci­sion in the case, the com­pa­ny was or­dered to pay the State $15,000 in le­gal costs. 

The seizure of the firearm was re­lat­ed to a shoot­ing at Wil­son Street in St Au­gus­tine, on April 26, 2010. 

The firearm was seized and on­ly re­turned in Feb­ru­ary 2016. 

The com­pa­ny filed a law­suit and ob­tained a de­fault judge­ment af­ter State at­tor­neys failed to de­fend it. 

In as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion, Mas­ter Alexan­der said that the com­pa­ny was en­ti­tled to rel­a­tive­ly sig­nif­i­cant nom­i­nal dam­ages as it clear­ly suf­fered a loss with­out the firearm. 

How­ev­er, she ruled that she could not or­der the sub­stan­tial com­pen­sa­tion claimed. 

“This court found that the doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence pro­vid­ed was in­suf­fi­cient to sup­port the huge sums be­ing sought in dam­ages and that there were ques­tions that emerged from the lim­it­ed ev­i­dence pro­vid­ed that were not an­swered by Alphe­ga to the sat­is­fac­tion of this court,” Mas­ter Alexan­der said. 

The com­pa­ny was rep­re­sent­ed by Seana Ba­boolal, while Mon­i­ca Smith and Am­ri­ta Ram­sook rep­re­sent­ed the State. 

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS