DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has been or­dered to pay al­most $3.3 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to a man from Freeport whose house was dam­aged by a leak­ing wa­ter main.

Balchan Gopie, of  Chick­land Vil­lage, Freeport, won his neg­li­gence law­suit against the au­thor­i­ty af­ter a tri­al in April 2018. 

The com­pen­sa­tion owed to him was as­sessed by High Court Mas­ter Sher­lanne Pierre on Mon­day. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the un­der­ground pipeline in the road in front of his home be­gan leak­ing in mid-2012. 

Al­though Gopie made sev­er­al re­ports to the au­thor­i­ty, the leak was on­ly re­paired be­tween De­cem­ber 2012 and Jan­u­ary 2013. 

The soil in Gopie’s prop­er­ty was drenched by wa­ter leak­ing from the pipeline and Gopie no­ticed cracks in his home’s foun­da­tion and columns. 

Soil tests con­duct­ed by of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port and a pri­vate ge­ot­ech­ni­cal re­port pre­pared by a struc­tur­al en­gi­neer stat­ed that the dam­age to Gopie’s home was due to the leak­ing wa­ter. 

Gopie’s lawyers led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, filed the law­suit af­ter he sought as­sis­tance for the $2.2 mil­lion need­ed to re­place or re­con­struct his home, which was deemed a haz­ard, and re­ceived none. 

“I felt frus­trat­ed, hope­less and dis­tressed as I was giv­en as­sur­ances by the au­thor­i­ty, min­is­ters and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port which were nev­er ful­filled,” Gopie said in an af­fi­davit at­tached to his law­suit. 

“I feel like I am go­ing in cir­cles and I am left in lim­bo with­out re­ceiv­ing any form of de­fin­i­tive re­sponse or re­dress,” he added. 

In the law­suit, Gopie claimed that the au­thor­i­ty was neg­li­gent in al­low­ing the leak and fail­ing to rec­ti­fy it with­in a rea­son­able time. 

Through the law­suit, Gopie sought com­pen­sa­tion to re­place his home, for the tech­ni­cal re­ports he had to ob­tain to find the cause of the struc­tur­al dam­age, and for the dis­tress he suf­fered. He was al­so seek­ing his le­gal costs for pur­su­ing it.

In its de­fence, the au­thor­i­ty de­nied any wrong­do­ing as it claimed that the leak was not due to its un­der­ground pipeline but rather due to a less­er pipeline that con­nects it (the wa­ter main) to Gopie’s prop­er­ty. 

It al­so al­leged that the prop­er­ties in Gopie’s com­mu­ni­ty are prone to land­slides. 

“Any dam­age that the Claimant may prove was done to his build­ing was as a re­sult of a land­slide/land slip­page in the area. That sur­face run-off flowed un­re­strict­ed as a re­sult of the land­slide and ex­ac­er­bat­ed same,” it stat­ed. 

Gopie’s case was not the first time the au­thor­i­ty was or­dered to pay sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion for prop­er­ty dam­age due to a leak­ing pipeline. 

In 2017, for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­pel­late Judge Vasheist Kokaram or­dered $2.2 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion to Dar­win and Ka­malar Sa­ha­dath, whose Princes Town home suf­fered sim­i­lar dam­age from a leak­ing pipeline. 

A year lat­er, the Court of Ap­peal dis­missed WASA’s ap­peal chal­leng­ing the out­come. 

In De­cem­ber 2022, the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil re­ject­ed the au­thor­i­ty’s fi­nal ap­peal as it de­clined to con­duct its own as­sess­ment of the ev­i­dence based on the con­cur­rent find­ings of the lo­cal courts. 

In March, last year, High Court Judge Joan Charles up­held a sim­i­lar case brought by Janet Rousseau, of Up­per Pash­ley Street, Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille, whose house was de­stroyed by a rup­tured wa­ter main. 

WASA was or­dered to pay Rousseau al­most $1.7 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion, which rep­re­sent­ed the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with a re­place­ment home and dam­ages for breach of its statu­to­ry du­ty and for caus­ing a nui­sance. 

Gopie was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jared Ja­groo and Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell. WASA was rep­re­sent­ed by Ke­ston Mc­Quilkin and Sum­mer Sandy.