Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A pop­u­lar ex­tra lessons teacher from West­moor­ings is set to re­ceive over $800,000 in com­pen­sa­tion from two doc­tors, in­clud­ing a for­mer stu­dent, for defama­tion. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment on Tues­day, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim up­held Col­in Chin-Ale­ong’s case against Dr Gia Leid and Dr Tari­ni Bhag­wans­ingh. 

The law­suit re­lat­ed to posts made by Leid and Bhag­wans­ingh on their so­cial me­dia pages in Oc­to­ber 2021. 

While the al­le­ga­tions they made in re­la­tion to Chin-Ale­ong can­not be re­peat­ed as they were found to be high­ly defam­a­to­ry, they es­sen­tial­ly ac­cused him of im­prop­er con­duct. 

Al­though she was served with the pro­ceed­ings, Leid did not par­tic­i­pate in the case, and an ap­pli­ca­tion for a de­fault judg­ment against her was de­ferred pend­ing the out­come of the case against Bhag­wans­ingh. 

Bhag­wans­ingh de­nied any wrong­do­ing as he sought to re­ly on the defama­tion de­fences of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, fair com­ment, and pub­lic in­ter­est priv­i­lege.

He claimed that he knew Leid through so­cial me­dia and in her role as a fel­low med­ical prac­ti­tion­er, as she first made a post in re­la­tion to Chin-Ale­ong. 

He claimed that he had con­tact­ed Leid, who had mi­grat­ed to Ire­land, and she sub­stan­ti­at­ed the post, lead­ing him to re­post the al­le­ga­tions. 

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Rahim ruled that the posts were clear­ly defam­a­to­ry, as he stat­ed that Bhag­wans­ingh had no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for re­post­ing. 

“The in­abil­i­ty of the wit­ness to cor­rob­o­rate the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions oblit­er­ates the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion de­fence, as there is no oth­er ev­i­dence what­so­ev­er,” Jus­tice Rahim said.  

“In fact, his le­gal ar­gu­ment seems in­con­sis­tent with it­self be­cause on the one hand, he is al­leg­ing that he sim­ply re­post­ed some­one else’s al­le­ga­tion and on the oth­er hand, he is say­ing that he held an hon­est be­lief in its truth,” he added. 

Jus­tice Rahim al­so re­ject­ed his de­fence of fair com­ment on the ba­sis that he did not prove the al­le­ga­tions were true. 

Deal­ing with the pub­lic in­ter­est de­fence, Jus­tice Rahim not­ed that while there was pub­lic in­ter­est in pub­lish­ing the al­le­ga­tions if they were proven, he not­ed that the post could not be cat­e­gorised as re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism as Bhag­wans­ingh did not seek a re­sponse from Chin-Ale­ong be­fore pub­li­ca­tion. 

“Of course, had Tari­ni done his own re­search and sat­is­fied him­self of the bona fides of the words set out in the posts, the in­clu­sion of the ma­te­r­i­al may have been jus­ti­fi­able,” he said. 

In as­sess­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion, Jus­tice Rahim not­ed that Bhag­wans­ingh had over 5,000 fol­low­ers across so­cial me­dia plat­forms. 

Jus­tice Rahim con­sid­ered the sever­i­ty of the al­le­ga­tions and the po­ten­tial im­pact on his suc­cess­ful busi­ness. 

Leid was or­dered to pay $330,000 in gen­er­al and ex­em­plary dam­ages, while Bhag­wans­ingh was or­dered $410,000 in dam­ages. The duo was al­so or­dered to pay Chin-Ale­ong’s le­gal costs for the law­suit. 

The dif­fer­ence in the dam­ages or­dered in re­la­tion to each of the doc­tors was based on Bhag­wans­ingh’s re­posts hav­ing the po­ten­tial to reach more view­ers. 

They were al­so or­dered to is­sue an un­equiv­o­cal apol­o­gy and re­trac­tion, and were re­strained from re­peat­ing the al­le­ga­tions. 

Chin-Ale­ong was rep­re­sent­ed by Raphael Mor­ton-Git­tens and Aman­da See­bal­ack.