DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A dis­pute be­tween peo­ple af­fil­i­at­ed with the Diego Mar­tin Mer­ry Tones Steel Or­ches­tra, over con­trol of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, has been re­solved.

A law­suit brought by the or­ches­tra against for­mer Pan Trin­ba­go vice pres­i­dent By­ron Serette, its for­mer arranger Lin­coln Wal­dron, and the duo’s al­leged as­so­ciate Patrick Au­gus­tine was set­tled by the par­ties’ lawyers as it was set to go to tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The dis­pute arose in March, last year when Wal­dron al­leged­ly en­tered the leased prop­er­ty at Bagatelle Road in Diego Mar­tin used by the steel band and al­leged­ly took con­trol of it.

The steel band’s man­age­ment com­mit­tee at­tempt­ed to in­cor­po­rate the band with the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al but learnt that an­oth­er en­ti­ty bear­ing a name for­mer­ly used by the band to com­pete, “Mer­ry Tones Steel Or­ches­tra”, had been reg­is­tered by Serette, Wal­dron, and a third par­ty.

The band ob­tained an in­junc­tion block­ing Serette, Wal­dron and Au­gus­tine from oc­cu­py­ing its pa­n­yard while a sub­stan­tive case over con­trol of the band was be­ing con­sid­ered by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad.

In the law­suit, the band claimed that it was es­tab­lished in the 1950s and be­gan com­pet­ing with the un­in­cor­po­rat­ed name “Mer­ry Tones Steel Or­ches­tra” when the first Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion was held in 1963.

In 1985, Diego Mar­tin was added to the band’s name.

It claimed that Serette is a for­mer mem­ber of the band, who as­sist­ed in re­viv­ing it in the 1970s. Wal­dron was a mem­ber of the band in the 1960s be­fore he mi­grat­ed. He served as an arranger be­tween 1987 and 1991 and left af­ter his ser­vices were no longer re­quired.

The band claimed that the group’s al­leged tres­pass on the land caused it to miss out on rev­enue from a busi­ness that rents a por­tion of it.

It al­so con­tend­ed that the group at­tempt­ed to ben­e­fit from the band’s rep­u­ta­tion and good­will by pass­ing off their reg­is­tered or­gan­i­sa­tion as it.

In de­fence of the law­suit, Serette, Wal­dron and Au­gus­tine main­tained that they were mem­bers of the band.

They al­so claimed that Serette was vi­tal to the for­ma­tion of the band in its cur­rent for­mat and reg­is­tered it with Pan Trin­ba­go.

They al­so de­nied that they tres­passed on the prop­er­ty as they claimed that they were al­lowed ac­cess as mem­bers.

Dur­ing the hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, the par­ties pre­sent­ed a con­sent or­der to set­tle the case.

Un­der the terms, it was de­clared that the band is the con­troller of the prop­er­ty and the steel pans and oth­er mu­si­cal equip­ment used by it.

It was al­so agreed that the en­ti­ty reg­is­tered by Serette and Wal­dron would be re­moved from the com­pa­ny’s reg­istry.

As the par­ties could not agree on com­pen­sa­tion, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­solved the is­sue for them.

He not­ed that in 2005, for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­pel­late Judge Char­maine Pem­ber­ton up­held a case over the fail­ure of the band to im­ple­ment a con­sti­tu­tion and elect of­fi­cials to take over from its in­ter­im man­age­ment team that had been in place since 1990.

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that the trio had a vest­ed in­ter­est in the band and ac­knowl­edged the “angst and frus­tra­tion” they faced by the fail­ure of the band to abide by the pre­vi­ous court or­der, he still crit­i­cised their con­duct.

“The road to hell is paved with good in­ten­tions. The course adopt­ed, though well in­tend­ed, was not ap­pro­pri­ate,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed that they should have in­stead sought le­gal ad­vice and ap­proached the court for re­lief.

“Had the con­sti­tu­tion been ap­proved and adopt­ed then there would have been reg­u­lar­i­ty of process,” he said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did not or­der any com­pen­sa­tion or that the trio should pay the band’s le­gal costs for the law­suit.

“In all the cir­cum­stances I do not think it would be just or pro­por­tion­ate to pe­nalise the de­fen­dants with a costs or­der. As there is com­plic­i­ty on both sides it would be best for par­ties to bear their own costs,” he said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so sought to re­mind the par­ties of the im­por­tant cul­tur­al role that the band plays in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“The ben­e­fits de­rived from or­gan­i­sa­tions such as claimant can­not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed,” he said.

The band was rep­re­sent­ed by Christlyn Moore and Ren­isha Hutchin­son, while Richard Clarke-Wills and Ce­leste St Louis rep­re­sent­ed the trio.