Derek Achong

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has been or­dered to pay a lit­tle over $1.7 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to a woman from east Port-of-Spain, whose house was de­stroyed by a burst wa­ter main.

High Court Judge Joan Charles or­dered sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion for Janet Rousseau, of Up­per Pash­ley Street, Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille, as she up­held her law­suit against WASA on Mon­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, short­ly af­ter Rousseau com­plet­ed the con­struc­tion of her home in De­cem­ber 2003, she no­ticed cracks in the walls.

She re­port­ed­ly con­tact­ed WASA, as she al­leged­ly sus­pect­ed that the dam­age was caused by a burst wa­ter main near her prop­er­ty.

By the time the leak was re­paired in No­vem­ber 2007, ir­repara­ble dam­age had al­ready been done to her home.

Rousseau’s land was even­tu­al­ly val­ued at $200,000, as the build­ing suf­fered ex­treme struc­tur­al dam­age and was ex­pect­ed to im­mi­nent­ly col­lapse.

In the law­suit, Rousseau claimed that WASA breached its statu­to­ry du­ty to re­pair wa­ter fit­tings un­der the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Act. She al­so con­tend­ed that WASA’s ac­tions con­sti­tut­ed a nui­sance, as they im­pact­ed on her right to use and en­joy her land.

In its de­fence, WASA de­nied any wrong­do­ing, as it claimed that the dam­age to Rousseau’s home was not caused by the leak­ing pipeline but rather due to the slop­ing topog­ra­phy of the land it was built up­on.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Charles not­ed that Rousseau had es­tab­lished on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties that the dam­age was caused by the au­thor­i­ty’s leak­ing pipeline.

“I al­so hold that the De­fen­dant was neg­li­gent in that it breached its du­ty of care to the Claimant by fail­ing to re­pair its bro­ken mains, which caused the wa­ter flow­ing there­from to seep in­to and sat­u­rate the soil un­der the Claimant’s house, there­by lead­ing to the sub­sis­tence of said soil and de­struc­tion of her house,” she said.

Jus­tice Charles not­ed that while Rousseau and her wit­ness­es were con­sis­tent and cred­i­ble, the tes­ti­mo­ny of WASA’s wit­ness­es was rid­dled with in­con­sis­ten­cies and dis­crep­an­cies.

“None of the ev­i­dence ad­duced by the De­fen­dant was able to weak­en the Claimant’s case that her house had been de­stroyed by wa­ter leak­ing on­to her prop­er­ty from the De­fen­dant’s wa­ter main. I not­ed, in par­tic­u­lar, that the ev­i­dence of the De­fen­dant’s ex­perts were of lit­tle or no val­ue,” Jus­tice Charles said.

“I am of the view that the De­fen­dant should not have forced the Claimant to take this case to tri­al, giv­en that it was more than like­ly that her house had been de­stroyed as a re­sult of the De­fen­dant’s leak­ing wa­ter main.”

Jus­tice Charles or­dered WASA to pay $120,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for the breach of its statu­to­ry du­ty and $150,000 for caus­ing a nui­sance. She al­so or­dered $933,561 in spe­cial dam­ages, which rep­re­sent­ed the cost as­so­ci­at­ed with a re­place­ment home for Rousseau.

As part of her de­ci­sion in the case, Jus­tice Charles or­dered WASA to pay three per cent in­ter­est per an­num on the com­pen­sa­tion be­tween 2009 and yes­ter­day.

WASA was al­so or­dered to pay the le­gal costs in­curred by Rousseau in pur­su­ing the case.

Rousseau was rep­re­sent­ed by Kei­th Scot­land and Ka­ri­na Dook­ie, while Robin Ot­way and Sum­mer Sandy rep­re­sent­ed WASA.