A chef who could no longer work af­ter she fell and broke her wrist has set­tled her neg­li­gence law­suit against the Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre.

Lawyers for Philli­pa Not­ting­ham and the ho­tel came to the set­tle­ment as her law­suit was set to go on tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day.

Al­though the ex­act terms of the set­tle­ment can­not be re­vealed as the con­sent or­der con­tained a non-dis­clo­sure clause, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the ho­tel agreed to make a pay­ment to Not­ting­ham with­out the ad­mis­sion of any li­a­bil­i­ty.

The law­suit stemmed from an in­ci­dent at the ho­tel on De­cem­ber 31, 2017.

Not­ting­ham, 54, was trans­fer­ring items be­tween two kitchens us­ing a trol­ley when she slipped and fell near the pool area.

She was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment and an X-ray re­vealed that she suf­fered a frac­ture to her right wrist.

Her wrist was placed in a cast for six weeks. When it (the cast) was re­moved, Not­ting­ham could not make a fist with her in­jured hand due to nerve dam­age.

Al­though she could not re­turn to work as a chef due to the in­jury, the ho­tel con­tin­ued to pay Not­ting­ham un­til Oc­to­ber 2020, when she was ter­mi­nat­ed and paid com­pen­sa­tion un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act.

In the law­suit, Not­ting­ham, through her lawyer Criston J Williams, con­tend­ed that the ho­tel was neg­li­gent in fail­ing to pro­vide a safe work­space in­clud­ing an ad­e­quate sys­tem to trans­fer items be­tween the kitchens.

Not­ting­ham, who was as­sessed to be 35 per cent par­tial­ly dis­abled, was seek­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion which was most­ly based on her con­tin­u­ing med­ical ex­pens­es and loss of fu­ture earn­ings.

“The Claimant has, since the date of the in­ci­dent, lived in con­stant pain and has be­come de­pen­dent on painkillers for lim­it­ed tem­po­rary re­lief,” her lawyers said.

“The Claimant’s job prospects in her com­pe­ten­cy area have be­come nil, and she is present­ly de­pen­dent on her com­mon-law hus­band to fi­nance the bulk of her dai­ly liv­ing needs,” they added.

In its de­fence, the ho­tel de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

It claimed that it had in­stalled a cov­ered walk­way for kitchen staff to move be­tween the kitchens but Not­ting­ham chose to walk near the pool area in con­tra­ven­tion of its pol­i­cy.

The ho­tel was rep­re­sent­ed by Raphael Mor­ton-Git­tens. Not­ting­ham was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Chan­tal Al­leyne-Charles.