Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The moth­er of a woman who was killed along­side her ten-year-old nephew af­ter a truck crashed in­to their car in Man­zanil­la in 2019, has been award­ed over $500,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

Late last month, High Court Judge Joan Charles up­held Jen­nifer Me­liv­ille’s neg­li­gence case against the truck dri­ver Ker­wyn Lynch, his em­ploy­er Waste Dis­pos­al (2003) Ltd, and its in­sur­er Trinre In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny Ltd.

The law­suit re­lat­ed to an ac­ci­dent that re­sult­ed in the death of Me­liv­ille’s 33-year-old daugh­ter Al­isha Car­ring­ton and her nephew Josi­ah on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2019.

Car­ring­ton was dri­ving north along the Man­zanil­la Ma­yaro Road when the truck dri­ven by Lynch col­lid­ed head-on with her Nis­san Wingroad.

Car­ring­ton and Josi­ah died in the crash, while his moth­er, Isha, and Car­ring­ton’s step-chil­dren, ages four and five at the time, were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured but sur­vived. Lynch es­caped large­ly un­scathed.

Me­liv­ille filed the case al­leg­ing that Lynch was speed­ing and dri­ving with­out due care and at­ten­tion in her daugh­ter’s lane when the fa­tal crash oc­curred.

Lynch, his em­ploy­er and its in­sur­ance com­pa­ny de­nied any wrong­do­ing as they al­leged that Car­ring­ton was re­spon­si­ble for the ac­ci­dent as she was dri­ving out­side her lane and did not have a valid dri­ver’s per­mit.

They claimed that Me­liv­ille could not pur­sue a case in neg­li­gence based on her daugh­ter’s al­leged­ly un­law­ful acts.

Tes­ti­fy­ing in the case, Car­ring­ton’s sis­ter, who was in the car, con­firmed the claims made in the case over Lynch’s dri­ving.

A Man­zanil­la res­i­dent, who op­er­ates a food stall in the area where the ac­ci­dent oc­curred and wit­nessed it, claimed that she was con­cerned about the speed the truck was dri­ving at be­fore the crash.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Charles re­ject­ed Lynch’s ev­i­dence as she not­ed that it ma­te­ri­al­ly con­tra­dict­ed his claims about the ac­ci­dent in his wit­ness state­ment when he tes­ti­fied be­fore her.

Jus­tice Charles al­so re­ject­ed the de­fen­dant’s claims in re­la­tion to Car­ring­ton not be­ing a law­ful dri­ver, as she point­ed out that such re­quired ev­i­dence and not just an al­le­ga­tion from an in­ves­ti­ga­tor ap­point­ed by the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny.

Jus­tice Charles or­dered $25,000 in dam­ages for loss of ex­pec­ta­tion of life and $5,000 for Car­ring­ton’s fu­ner­al ex­pens­es.

The ma­jor­i­ty of the com­pen­sa­tion was based on loss of fu­ture earn­ings, which was cal­cu­lat­ed based on Car­ring­ton be­ing em­ployed as a Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme Com­pa­ny (CEPEP) work­er at a rate of $6,000 a month at the time of her death.

Jus­tice Charles utilised a mul­ti­pli­er of 15, which she ap­plied to Car­ring­ton’s an­nu­al salary less liv­ing ex­pens­es, re­sult­ing in $540,000 in dam­ages.

The de­fen­dants were al­so or­dered to pay $77,031.24 in le­gal costs to her moth­er and in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion from when the case was filed in 2019.

Me­liv­ille was rep­re­sent­ed by Anas­ta­sia Ge­ofroy and Ravi Pheerangee. Gre­go­ry Ar­mor­er and Lisa Singh rep­re­sent­ed Lynch and the com­pa­nies.