Derek Achong
An elderly couple of Maracas/St Joseph has emerged victorious in an almost two-decade legal property battle against the son of their deceased neighbour.
Delivering a judgment late last week, five Law Lords of the United Kingdom-based Privy Council dismissed Robert Stokes’ final appeal against Charles and Mary Porter over the handling of the case by the local High Court and Court of Appeal.
The dispute centred around a parcel of land located along the Maracas Royal Road in Maracas/St Joseph, which the couple purchased from Stokes’ now-deceased father Walter in 1982.
The land lies between the Maracas River to the west and the road to the east with the only means of access through a strip of land running along the southern boundary of the land retained by Stokes.
While the strip of land was included in the sale agreement between the parties, it was excluded from the eventual deed of conveyance that was executed after the sale was concluded.
The couple filed the lawsuit after they approached Stokes to execute a deed of rectification to correct the alleged error and he refused.
Stokes contended that his father never intended to include the strip of land in the sale but admitted that the couple had a right of way through the strip of land to access their parcel.
The couple’s case was rejected by High Court Judge Joan Charles in December 2013.
In deciding the case, Justice Charles considered two survey plans that were prepared in March and April 1982. The first plan labelled “A2” did not include the strip of land but the latter, labelled “A4”, included it.
The A2 plan, which was signed by the surveyor, the couple, and the elder Stokes, was annexed to the sale agreement while the A4 plan, which was only signed by the surveyor, formed part of the deed.
Justice Charles ruled that the Porters had deliberately prepared the differing plans in a bid to deceive Stokes’ father.
In June 2019, three Appellate Judges overturned Justice Charles’ decision and upheld the couple’s case.
They held that Justice Charles did not properly consider the documentary evidence in the case and placed too much emphasis on the fact that the parties did not sign the A4 survey plan.
They also criticised the judge for her fraud findings in relation to the Porters.
Lord Michael Briggs, who delivered the Board’s decision in the appeal, ruled that the Court of Appeal was correct to revisit Justice Charles’ findings of fact.
Lord Briggs ruled that Justice Charles improperly called on the couple to provide strong unambiguous evidence that including the strip of land in the deal was the common intention of the parties.
He stated that such a process should have only been applied if there was no prior binding contract between the parties.
However, Lord Briggs noted that he and his colleagues had sympathy for Justice Charles as her analysis of the case was based on the parties agreeing with her erroneous summary of the relevant law.
“In particular it led her to underestimate the importance of the contract itself, which is the primary relevant document in the case given that it created the rights which the Porters were seeking to enforce,” he said.
He also noted that she was not entitled to make the fraud or deception findings against the Porters as Stokes made no such allegation in his response to their case.
“It is one thing for a judge to conclude that evidence has not been honestly given, but quite another to find as a fact that there had been a deliberate deception leading to a signed contract for two parcels (including the strip) as part of an attempt to obtain land from a generous friend by false pretences,” Lord Briggs said.
While Lord Briggs and his colleagues ruled that the Court of Appeal was correct to order rectification, they noted that it made minor errors in its analysis of the case.
Despite the errors, the Board came to the same conclusion albeit for slightly different reasons.
In considering the case themselves, the Law Lords upheld the couple’s claim over the strip of land over Stokes.
“The parties cannot be said to have mistakenly included the strip in the contract by some slip of the pen,” Lord Briggs said.
“It follows that recourse to the surviving documents as the best way, after such a lapse in time, of testing the reliability of the parties’ diametrically opposed witness evidence, leads inexorably to the conclusion that the Porters’ evidence is to be preferred over that of Robert Stokes and his additional witnesses on the rectification issue,” he said.
As part of its judgment, the Board thanked the T&T Deeds Registry for its assistance in providing information and documents to it while considering the case.
“This speedy trans-Atlantic cooperation in real-time has been greatly appreciated,” he said.
The Porters were represented by Ian Benjamin, SC, and Kerwyn Garcia, while Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, Robert Strang, and Katharine Bailey represented Stokes.
