Derek Achong

A for­mer em­ploy­ee at chem­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­er Yara Trinidad Lim­it­ed, who was left 20 per cent par­tial­ly dis­abled af­ter falling while ad­dress­ing an oil leak at the com­pa­ny’s plant in 2019, has sued the com­pa­ny for neg­li­gence. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Pravesh Ram­la­gan, of La Ro­maine, who was ter­mi­nat­ed by the com­pa­ny on med­ical grounds in April, last year, filed the law­suit late last week. 

Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ram­la­gan suf­fered the in­jury at the com­pa­ny’s plant in Savonet­ta, Point Lisas, while work­ing as a process plant op­er­a­tor on May 9, 2019. 

Ram­la­gan claimed that short­ly af­ter mid­night he no­ticed a leak from the lu­bri­ca­tion oil pump skid at­tached to a feed gas com­pres­sor. 

He claimed that he used a de­greas­er pro­vid­ed by the com­pa­ny to clear the area and in­ves­ti­gate the leak.
Ram­la­gan claimed that while ma­neu­ver­ing in the tight area, he slipped and fell. 

Ram­la­gan in­formed his su­per­vi­sor of his in­juries and was ad­vised to vis­it the com­pa­ny’s med­ical cen­tre but found it emp­ty when he ar­rived. 

“Thus, the claimant had no al­ter­na­tive but to per­son­al­ly tend to his in­juries with the med­ical sup­plies he found, and he per­formed first-aid on him­self by clean­ing and ban­dag­ing his in­juries with the help of a con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty guard,” Ram­la­gan’s lawyer Saira Lakhan said. 

Af­ter treat­ing the in­juries, Ram­la­gan com­plet­ed his shift. 

Af­ter a brief meet­ing with com­pa­ny of­fi­cials over the ac­ci­dent in­clud­ing re­vis­it­ing the scene, Ram­la­gan was tak­en to the com­pa­ny’s doc­tor. He claimed that he was trans­port­ed in a com­pa­ny pick-up truck as it re­fused to use its am­bu­lance.

Ram­la­gan, whose in­juries in­clud­ed the rup­ture of his an­te­ri­or cru­ci­ate lig­a­ment in his left knee, un­der­went op­er­a­tions and re­mained on sick leave for sev­er­al months be­fore he was cleared to re­turn to work. 

How­ev­er, short­ly af­ter re­turn­ing to work, Ram­la­gan com­plained of still ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain and dis­com­fort. 

He was even­tu­al­ly ter­mi­nat­ed in April, last year. 

In the law­suit, Ram­la­gan is claim­ing that the com­pa­ny was neg­li­gent in al­leged­ly fail­ing to prop­er­ly main­tain its plant and in pro­vid­ing ad­e­quate safe­ty equip­ment as the pump had been al­leged­ly leak­ing since 2017. 

He is al­so al­leg­ing that the com­pa­ny failed to ad­here to its oblig­a­tions un­der sev­er­al pro­vi­sions of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act (OSH Act) as it al­leged­ly did not im­ple­ment rec­om­men­da­tions made by its health and safe­ty com­mit­tee. 

Through the law­suit, Ram­la­gan is seek­ing a lit­tle over $160,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for what he spent on his med­ical ex­pens­es and on trans­porta­tion costs when he could not dri­ve af­ter the ac­ci­dent and un­der­go­ing surgery. 

He is al­so seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for his pain and suf­fer­ing as he has to con­tin­u­ous­ly wear a knee brace and is pre­clud­ed from en­gag­ing in ex­ten­sive phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. 

“The claimant present­ly suf­fers from anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion, sleep de­pri­va­tion and he is self-con­scious about walk­ing with a limp at his age as he con­sid­ers him­self to be a young adult,” Lakhan said. 

Al­though Ram­la­gan re­ceived al­most $360,000 un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act af­ter be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed, he is seek­ing ad­di­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion for his fu­ture loss of earn­ings. 

“The claimant avers that he is al­so en­ti­tled to a lump sum pay­ment for loss of earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty as his abil­i­ty to work was se­ri­ous­ly im­paired. The Claimant would be at a dis­ad­van­tage in the labour mar­ket,” Lakhan said.

Ram­la­gan’s lawyer sug­gest­ed that the loss of earn­ings should be cal­cu­lat­ed based on him be­ing 34-years-old when he was ter­mi­nat­ed, the com­pa­ny’s re­tire­ment age be­ing 60, and his month­ly salary, ben­e­fits and bonus­es of al­most $50,000 be­fore ter­mi­na­tion.

Ram­la­gan is al­so seek­ing dam­ages for his fu­ture med­ical care as he claims that his doc­tors in­formed him that he had a 75 per­cent chance of re­quir­ing a to­tal knee re­place­ment in 10 to 15 years time. 

The com­pa­ny is yet to file its de­fence to the law­suit.