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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Lawyers in AG's former law firm CLIENT SWAPPING

SWRHA lawyer in the dark

by

20110618

A bat­tery of at­tor­neys from Free­dom House Law Cham­bers-the law firm which At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan for­mer­ly head­ed-is al­leged­ly en­gag­ing in client swap­ping re­gard­ing a num­ber of law­suits they filed against the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA). At­tor­neys, who ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion against SWRHA on their clients' be­half, have sud­den­ly 'jumped ship', and are now de­fend­ing the same Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty they brought le­gal ac­tion against. While 'A-Team' at­tor­ney, Ger­ald Ramdeen-who has been re­tained by Ram­lo­gan to­geth­er with Alan New­man, QC, Guyanese Ak­bar Ali, British foren­sic ac­coun­tant Mar­tin Hall, and lo­cal at­tor­ney Mark Seep­er­sad, to fer­ret out in­stances of cor­rup­tion and malfea­sance in state en­ter­pris­es-is now on record rep­re­sent­ing sev­er­al claimants in nu­mer­ous mat­ters against the SWRHA. At­tor­neys Cindy Bhag­wan­deen, Kent Sam­lal, Rachel Maikhoo and Maris­sa Ram­soon­dar who are or were at­tached to Free­dom House Law Cham­bers, pre­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent­ed the claimants.

Set­tle­ments

The mat­ter does not end there though. Sun­day Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions have un­earthed that set­tle­ments are be­ing struck be­hind the back of Har­rikissoon and Com­pa­ny-the law firm that has rep­re­sent­ed the in­ter­est of the SWRHA for the past eight years. The Sun­day Guardian has learnt that a re­tain­er is paid to the law firm per month for le­gal ser­vices pro­vid­ed to SWRHA. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly five law­suits per month may be filed against SWRHA by dis­grun­tled pa­tients seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion and dam­ages for loved ones. Sun­day Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that with­in re­cent times, deals are be­ing of­fered to claimants, the re­sult of which, if ac­cept­ed, brings lit­i­ga­tion to a pre­ma­ture end. Un­der the Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules 1998 as amend­ed, a claimant that is suc­cess­ful in a High Court Ac­tion may be en­ti­tled to pre­scribed costs which are usu­al­ly cal­cu­lat­ed based on the val­ue of the claim or the amount award­ed or the amount agreed be­tween the par­ties.

De­pend­ing on the mat­ter, pre­scribed cost may vary any­where from $30,000 to mil­lions of dol­lars. Not on­ly is the al­leged ac­tion of some of the at­tor­neys a breach of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act, sources said, but al­so a con­flict of in­ter­est in in­stances where the said at­tor­neys ini­ti­at­ed the mat­ters in­volved. Sec­tion 26 (1) of the Act states: An at­tor­ney may rep­re­sent mul­ti­ple clients on­ly if he can ad­e­quate­ly rep­re­sent the in­ter­est of each and if each con­sents to such rep­re­sen­ta­tions af­ter full dis­clo­sure of the pos­si­ble ef­fects of mul­ti­ple rep­re­sen­ta­tions. Em­broiled at the cen­tre of the con­tro­ver­sy is Bhag­wan­deen, who has been re­tained by the Au­thor­i­ty in a mat­ter in­volv­ing Tri­cia Fran­cis against SWRHA and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Doc­u­ments ob­tained by Sun­day Guardian iden­ti­fies Bhag­wan­deen as the in­struct­ing at­tor­ney in sev­er­al of the law­suits filed by Ram­lo­gan against SWRHA be­fore his ap­point­ment to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's of­fice. Be­fore Ram­lo­gan's el­e­va­tion he was known for his vo­cif­er­ous stance in de­fend­ing the civ­il rights of cit­i­zens. It was on­ly re­cent­ly the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al stat­ed that in some in­stances it was cheap­er to set­tle on­go­ing mat­ters in­stead of en­gag­ing in lengthy lit­i­ga­tion dis­putes at the cost of tax­pay­ers.

Bhag­wan­deen now de­fend­ing SWRHA

Ram­lo­gan, in hand­ing over the Free­dom House of­fice, as­sured his for­mer clients of the con­fi­dence he had in Bhag­wan­deen whom he had cho­sen to lead the Har­ris Street, San Fer­nan­do law cham­bers as he em­barked on a new ca­reer path. How­ev­er, in an about turn, Bhag­wan­deen has re­port­ed­ly now been re­tained to rep­re­sent the in­ter­ests of the SWRHA. Sun­day Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that some­time around Feb­ru­ary 22, the Au­thor­i­ty re­tained Bhag­wan­deen to rep­re­sent the said client. How­ev­er, with­in days of Bhag­wan­deen's re­ten­tion, the firm of Har­rikissoon and Com­pa­ny ex­pressed sur­prise over the move. Con­cerns were raised on whether the Board was ap­prised that Bhag­wan­deen along with oth­er col­leagues at­tached to Free­dom House Law Cham­ber ini­ti­at­ed sev­er­al mat­ters against SWRHA, some of which are com­plet­ed and some of which are still on­go­ing. In­ves­ti­ga­tions fur­ther re­vealed that it was not­ed that giv­en Bhag­wan­deen's in­volve­ment in the said mat­ters it could be per­ceived as a con­flict on in­ter­est. The Au­thor­i­ty was al­so warned of the se­vere im­pli­ca­tions such a move can have for both SWRHA and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al who is al­so a de­fen­dant in this mat­ter and was the for­mer head of Free­dom House.

A pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter is­sued to SWRHA last Au­gust ob­ject­ed to the move. An ex­cerpt of the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter stat­ed: "This mat­ter is against SWRHA and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. You are once again re­mind­ed of the very se­vere con­se­quence that will oc­cur as to the se­lec­tion of Ms Cindy Bhag­wan­deen to han­dle the con­duct of this mat­ter. The rules quot­ed in the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act as re­gards to the se­lec­tion of at­tor­neys in the con­duct of le­gal mat­ters must be ad­hered to." Har­rikissoon fur­ther not­ed that based on the med­ical re­port dat­ed Jan­u­ary 20, 2010, sub­mit­ted by Dr Hari D Ma­haraj it can be in­ferred that the claimant in­tends to seek a lu­cra­tive set­tle­ment. He said while the claimant's at­tor­ney did not in­di­cate any spe­cif­ic sum for gen­er­al or spe­cial dam­ages it was sug­gest­ed that SWRHA should ac­cept li­a­bil­i­ty and then be fixed with an ex­or­bi­tant claim for dam­ages. Copies of the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter were al­so for­ward­ed to sec­re­tary of the board, Car­ol Joseph and the Au­thor­i­ty's fired chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Paula Chester-Cum­ber­batch. No re­sponse has been for­ward­ed to the law firm to date re­gard­ing the said mat­ter.

Claimants of­fered deals

In­stead, the firm has been placed in a pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion in a Work­man's Com­pen­sa­tion mat­ter in­volv­ing Andy Joseph against the SWRHA. Sources re­vealed shock­ing plans to set­tle a mat­ter with­out the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion be­ing re­lat­ed to the law firm rep­re­sent­ing the SWRHA. The claimant's at­tor­ney brought the pro­pos­al to the knowl­edge of Har­rikissoon and Com­pa­ny when the mat­ter came up for hear­ing on May 24. Sources re­vealed that Har­rikissoon ob­ject­ed to the pro­pos­al on the ba­sis of two rea­sons-the said ap­pli­ca­tion ran afoul of the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od with­in which such an ap­pli­ca­tion can be made and the work­er did not qual­i­fy un­der the said ap­pli­ca­tion. In­sist­ing that a pro­pos­al was of­fered, Har­rikissoon was then ad­vised to con­tact the Au­thor­i­ty's se­nior le­gal of­fi­cer to con­firm the agree­ment. Har­rikissioon con­firmed in a doc­u­ment that a di­rec­tive was giv­en for the mat­ter to be set­tled at the said hear­ing or else the file would be for­ward­ed to an­oth­er at­tor­ney. The de­ci­sion, how­ev­er, is not sit­ting well with the law firm as it is on record stat­ing that they failed to con­cur with the view that the said mat­ter ought to have been set­tled.

Bodeo brought be­fore Health Min­is­ter

In an­oth­er in­stance, the Au­thor­i­ty's chair­man, Dr Lack­ram Bodeo was brought to the at­ten­tion of Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis in the mat­ter-CV 2011-00443 Jer­rick Loutan (a mi­nor by his moth­er as his next of kin and next friend Ma­ha­daye Boodram) against SWRHA. The Sun­day Guardian learnt that the law firm of Har­rikissoon and Com­pa­ny re­ceived di­rec­tions from Bodeo that the le­gal pa­pers in the Jer­rick Loutan mat­ter be for­ward­ed to at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la. But fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that Har­rikissoon took is­sue with the stance tak­en, ob­ject­ing to the course of ac­tion adopt­ed by Bodeo. Cit­ing grounds for dis­miss­ing the di­rec­tive, Har­rikissoon in­formed Bodeo that the Board is the de­ci­sion mak­er for the Au­thor­i­ty and not an in­di­vid­ual mem­ber or chair­man.

RHA ACT says:

The Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty Act Ch 29:05 at Sub Sec­tion 20(1) im­plies that the de­ci­sion to ap­point an at­tor­ney to rep­re­sent SWRHA is to be un­der­tak­en by the Board and not an in­di­vid­ual di­rec­tor or chair­man. The Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties like most oth­er Statu­to­ry Cor­po­ra­tions acts through its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers. The mem­bers of the Board are not ca­pa­ble of di­rect­ing and or in­struct­ing the em­ploy­ees.

Ramdeen: Whose con­cern is this?

"If I as an at­tor­ney have been briefed by the Gov­ern­ment to rep­re­sent the Gov­ern­ment in cer­tain mat­ters re­lat­ing to probes in the in­ves­ti­ga­tions and I have a le­gal firm what is the dif­fi­cul­ty in me su­ing the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (RHA). Why is that al­le­ga­tion of any im­por­tance to any­one. My en­tire prac­tice of law has been in the field of pub­lic law; my en­tire rep­u­ta­tion has been based on su­ing the State; I don't see why any­body is mak­ing an is­sue out of that. "What is the link of be­ing part of the 'A-Team' and su­ing the RHA; the SWRHA is not un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion." Asked if he has been re­tained as the at­tor­ney for the claimant, he said: "I would have to check my records and see what mat­ters I am list­ed in for the claimants. I have a team of at­tor­neys that work with me. The mat­ters be­fore the High Court are mat­ters of pub­lic record. Of whose con­cern is this? It is mat­ter of pub­lic record that I rep­re­sent the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in a num­ber of mat­ters. I do not see why is that a con­cern of some­one who does not want to di­vulge what their po­si­tion is? "I am briefed in a num­ber of mat­ters where I rep­re­sent Free­dom House as coun­sel. On­ly last Fri­day I was briefed in an Ap­peal to rep­re­sent Free­dom House against the Pub­lic Ser­vices Com­mis­sion."

Com­ments

Bhag­wan­deen re­sponds

Con­firm­ing she has been re­tained by SWRHA to rep­re­sent the Au­thor­i­ty in a mat­ter, Bhag­wan­deen said: "I am no longer on record for any clients who are now su­ing the SWRHA." Asked if she was on record for pre­vi­ous clients who filed ac­tion against SWRHA, Bhag­wan­deen re­spond­ed: "De­pends on which clients you are speak­ing about. Clients have tak­en their mat­ters else­where. I am not on record for any of those clients; they have cho­sen to take their mat­ters to oth­er at­tor­neys." Quizzed on whether she is on record for any client su­ing the SWRHA, Bhag­wan­deen replied: "I have been briefed in on­ly one mat­ter re­gard­ing the SWRHA and that is be­cause I have no clients who are su­ing the SWRHA; so there is no con­flict of in­ter­est. All my mat­ters in­volv­ing clients who had pre­vi­ous­ly sued the SWRHA have been con­clud­ed or they have cho­sen to take their mat­ters to oth­er at­tor­neys which I would have no con­flict of be­cause I would have no deal­ings with those mat­ters. "I have been re­tained for SWRHA, not the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, and in one mat­ter. One lone­some brief and one brief is no rea­son to get rid of the client or any­thing of the sort. The way how it's com­ing across is be­cause you all think it's be­cause I am af­fil­i­at­ed to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al."

AG re­sponds

Com­ment­ing on the al­le­ga­tions, Ram­lo­gan said: "It would be un­eth­i­cal for any at­tor­ney to switch lanes from rep­re­sent­ing the claimant and, there­after rep­re­sent the de­fen­dant in the same case. It would be a se­ri­ous mat­ter that would be in breach of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act and may war­rant dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion if that is the case. If it is not in the same case then the con­cerns do not arise." In a fol­low-up in­ter­view, Ram­lo­gan added: "I have checked my own records at the min­istry and my in­for­ma­tion is my for­mer firm and the at­tor­neys there nev­er, nev­er act­ed for the claimant. They were not re­tained by the State to rep­re­sent the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in this mat­ter. I am ad­vised Bhag­wan­deen has been re­tained by SWRHA."

SWRHA

Chair­man of the SWRHA Bodeo in re­sponse to the mat­ter via e-mail stat­ed when he took of­fice this Board in­her­it­ed cer­tain arrange­ments per­tain­ing to the han­dling of le­gal mat­ters in the SWRHA. These arrange­ments in­clud­ed a month­ly re­tain­er, a brief fee, and re­fresh­er pay­ments for med­ical neg­li­gence cas­es. "It was al­so dis­cov­ered that one law firm han­dled vir­tu­al­ly all cas­es in the last eight (8 ) years' de­spite the rec­om­men­da­tion that this firm was to re­ceive on­ly mi­nor briefs and and mat­ters re­lat­ing to pub­lic law,' Bo­doe ex­plained. Fees paid to this firm up to 2009, Bo­doe said, rep­re­sent a sub­stan­tial sum and some of these le­gal mat­ters are still on­go­ing. At the mo­ment the law firm of Har­rikissoon and Com­pa­ny, Bo­doe stat­ed, holds the briefs for the ma­jor­i­ty of le­gal mat­ters. How­ev­er, the Board is in the process of re­view­ing all le­gal mat­ters and is cur­rent­ly com­pil­ing a pan­el of at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing dif­fer­ent ar­eas of ex­per­tise and le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence. As a re­sult, dif­fer­ent at­tor­neys have been re­tained in a num­ber of mat­ters. Based on Bhag­wan­deen's con­sid­er­able ex­pe­ri­ence in the field of med­ical neg­li­gence, she was as­signed as in­struct­ing at­tor­ney in the mat­ter in­volv­ing the SWRHA and Tri­cia Fran­cis. How­ev­er, the as­sign­ment of any at­tor­ney to any case is sub­ject to re­view pend­ing fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the pan­el. When the pan­el is fi­nalised, Bo­doe stat­ed that the Board be­lieves that the le­gal work of the Au­thor­i­ty will be more eq­ui­tably dis­trib­uted.


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