Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 69-year-old man has lost his bid to be legal­ly recog­nised as hav­ing been in a co­hab­i­ta­tion re­la­tion­ship with an 83-year-old woman suf­fer­ing from de­men­tia.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Ricky Rahim re­ject­ed the ap­pli­ca­tion from the man, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held due to the na­ture of the case and the el­der­ly woman’s med­ical con­di­tion.

The man filed the law­suit last year af­ter the woman’s daugh­ters, who live abroad, and a care­giv­er were ap­point­ed to a com­mit­tee to over­see her af­fairs af­ter she was de­clared a pa­tient un­der the Men­tal Health Act.

The man, who claimed to have been in a re­la­tion­ship with the woman since 2009, al­leged that her rel­a­tives sought to forcibly evict him from her prop­er­ty in Pe­tit Bourg.

He claimed that he met the woman when she hired him to per­form re­pairs on her prop­er­ty when­ev­er she pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly came to Trinidad from Cana­da for va­ca­tion.

He claimed that their re­la­tion­ship blos­somed when she re­turned to Trinidad to live over a decade ago.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Rahim re­ject­ed claims by her daugh­ters that the man was hired by their moth­er to oc­ca­sion­al­ly dri­ve her around and con­duct mi­nor re­pairs on her home.

“To sug­gest that (name with­held) was a ran­dom taxi dri­ver who hap­pened to be (name with­held)’s handy­man is to ig­nore ma­te­r­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions.

Al­though Jus­tice Rahim ac­knowl­edged that the two shared a close re­la­tion­ship, he found no ev­i­dence to sup­port that it was one akin to mar­riage, as re­quired un­der the Co­hab­i­ta­tion­al Re­la­tion­ships Act.

“The court, there­fore, has found that in all of the cir­cum­stances, when all of the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed to it is weighed, it is more like­ly than not that (name with­held) was a com­pan­ion who fa­cil­i­tat­ed (name with­held) and whose hous­ing needs were met at the same time,” he said.

His de­ci­sion was par­tial­ly based on the man ad­mit­ting that he would on­ly re­side at the house when the woman was in Trinidad and would va­cate when she oc­ca­sion­al­ly re­turned to Cana­da.

“If (name with­held) was in a co­hab­i­ta­tion re­la­tion­ship with (name with­held) at the time, then why dis­place him every time she would leave,” he said.

“This is not a rea­son­able ac­tion on her part in re­la­tion to some­one who is a live-in part­ner akin to her hus­band,” he added.

He al­so ruled there was no ev­i­dence of a sex­u­al re­la­tion­ship.

“He has giv­en no re­al ev­i­dence of pro­longed in­ti­ma­cy save and ex­cept his ev­i­dence of an af­ter-lunch lay in the bed with his head on her lap, some­thing not un­known to nor­mal friend­ship,” he said.

Based on his find­ings, Jus­tice Rahim lift­ed an in­junc­tion he grant­ed pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the case, which al­lowed the man to con­tin­ue to stay at the prop­er­ty.

He al­so specif­i­cal­ly or­dered that the man va­cate the prop­er­ty and re­move his per­son­al items from it.

“Be­cause the his­to­ry of this mat­ter has shown a dire sense of an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween the par­ties, at times re­sult­ing in near vi­o­lence, it is in the in­ter­est of all that the court makes suit­able or­ders to guide what takes place next so that the com­mit­tee does not have to re­sort to self-help,” he said.

The man was rep­re­sent­ed by Farid Scoon, while Farai Hove-Ma­sai­sai, Bernelle La Fou­cade, and Chelsea Ed­wards rep­re­sent­ed the woman’s daugh­ters and the care­giv­er.