Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay a lit­tle over $50,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a wildlife farmer from San­ta Cruz, who lost a herd of deer af­ter his fence was dam­aged by a con­trac­tor of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port. 

High Court Judge Karen Reid or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Miguel Reyes as she up­held his neg­li­gence case against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, ear­li­er this week. 

Reyes’ case stemmed from an in­ci­dent at his farm at La Pas­to­ra, San­ta Cruz, in May 2015. 

A con­trac­tor hired by the  Min­istry of Works was con­duct­ing de-silt­ing work on the La Pas­to­ra Riv­er, which bounds Reyes’ farm, when they sought to re­move a patch of bam­boo, which was par­tial­ly rest­ing on Reyes’ fence. 

The fence was dam­aged in the process, and Reyes claimed eight deer, 36 quenk (wild hogs) and 12 low­land paca (lappe) man­aged to es­cape. 

The min­istry took over a month to re­pair the dam­age. 

Reyes pur­sued the law­suit for the loss­es he claimed he suf­fered from the re­lease of the an­i­mals, which he sold for meat with the per­mis­sion of the Wildlife Sec­tion of the Forestry Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture dur­ing the an­nu­al hunt­ing sea­son. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Reid found the min­istry neg­li­gent for the dam­age based on its ac­tions in ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and per­form­ing re­pairs. 

“I find, on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties, that the ac­tions of the con­trac­tor caused dam­age to the Claimant’s fence,” she said. 

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Reid found that Reyes failed to bring ev­i­dence over the ac­tu­al num­ber of an­i­mals he lost as he on­ly iden­ti­fied eight deer in his ini­tial po­lice re­port. 

“Oth­er than the Claimant’s bare state­ments, the on­ly ev­i­dence that ex­ists in re­la­tion to any kind of an­i­mals be­ing housed on the prop­er­ty re­lates sole­ly to the pres­ence of deer,” Jus­tice Reid said. 

“It is in­con­ceiv­able to me that the Claimant, as a pur­port­ed wildlife farmer for over 25 years, would not have ac­cess to a sin­gle record rel­a­tive to his trade,” she said. 

Jus­tice Reid or­dered $10,000 in dam­ages for tres­pass and $32,000 for the eight deer as Reid claimed he usu­al­ly sold them for $4,000 each. 

The State was or­dered to pay in­ter­est on the dam­ages and $14,000 in le­gal costs. 

Reyes was rep­re­sent­ed by Sarah Ram­s­ingh-Car­raz and Van­dana Kissoon.

The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Coreen Find­ley and Fazana Ali.