Former finance minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira has emerged victorious in her marathon legal battle with a private hospital and a specialist doctor over her husband's death during a routine operation in 2004.
In a judgement delivered yesterday, five Law Lords of the United Kingdom-based Privy Council dismissed two connected appeals brought by Gulf View Medical Centre Limited and anaesthesiologist Dr Crisen Jendra Roopchand.
In the appeals, the hospital and Dr Roopchand were claiming that former High Court Judge and current Appeal Court Judge Vasheist Kokaram and the Court of Appeal got it wrong when they upheld Nunez-Tesheira's lawsuit against them.
Lords Reed, Sales, Hamblen, Stephens and Pentland, who presided over the appeal, dismissed all seven grounds raised before them.
"There are no grounds for the Board to go behind such concurrent findings as to the cause of the deceased's death," they said.
In a brief telephone interview yesterday afternoon, Nunez-Tesheira said she was pleased with the hard-fought victory, which she attributed to her perseverance and her legal team led by Douglas Mendes SC.
"It has been long and drawn out...It has taken a toll," she said.
Nunez-Tesheira, an attorney and candidate for People's National Movement (PNM) political leader in upcoming internal elections, noted that her experience in pursuing the case made her understand why medical negligence lawsuits are notoriously difficult to win.
"I can't imagine what the man in the street must go through and how many are forced to give up," she said.
She said in addition to having to face the time and expense of defending numerous appeals in the case, she had difficulties in sourcing expert witnesses locally.
She said she was eventually able to secure the services of a well-respected local expert, who gave her a statement before retracting it. She said she was forced to turn to equally qualified regional experts but they only agreed to participate if they were able to produce their reports alongside foreign experts.
Nunez-Tesheira said her dispute with the hospital began days after her husband's death after her relatives, who are doctors, suggested she request his medical records for independent analysis. She claimed when she eventually decided to pursue the lawsuit, some of her friends and relatives tried to talk her out of it. She said she persisted in memory of her husband, Russell Tesheira, who she described as a wonderful father.
"I wanted to make sure that they were not going to walk away and in a year's time say sorry Russell died," she said.
Despite her legal victory, Nunez-Tesheira was apprehensive about whether she would be able to easily receive her compensation without enforcement proceedings.
"Based on my experience with them, I believe I am up for another challenge," she said.
Nunez-Tesheira's husband an insurance executive, died while undergoing a transurethral resectioning operation to his prostate at the hospital on April 13, 2004. During the procedure, an instrument is inserted up the patient’s urethra to remove the section of the prostate that is blocking urine flow.
Two hours after the procedure, Tesheira was found to be bleeding excessively, prompting doctors to perform a secondary operation and emergency blood transfusions. Tesheira died on the operating table.
Nunez-Tesheira filed the lawsuit claiming the hospital and the two doctors who did the procedure - urologist Dr Lester Goetz and Dr Roopchand - were negligent in her husband’s death.
In 2011, Justice Kokaram dismissed the lawsuit at a preliminary stage after Nunez-Tesheira failed to meet two successive deadlines he set for filing her evidence against the three parties.
While appealing the decision, Nunez-Tesheira came to a settlement with Dr Goetz, which saw him being removed from the lawsuit without accepting liability.
Nunez-Tesheira eventually won in the Court of Appeal and the lawsuit was reinstated.
In March 2015, Justice Kokaram ruled in Nunez-Tesheira's favour.
In assessing almost $18 million in compensation for Tesheira’s family, less the ex-gratia payment already made by Dr Goetz, Kokaram considered the salary and benefits he would have accrued if he had continued to work at Clico, where his last annual bonus before his death was almost $4 million.
Justice Kokaram's decision was eventually upheld by the Court of Appeal, which reversed some of his findings but ruled that he decided the overall case correctly.
The hospital and Dr Roopchand then filed a separate lawsuit seeking to have Dr Goetz pay a percentage of the compensation they were ordered to pay. Their ancillary case was eventually rejected by a High Court Judge and the Court of Appeal.
The compensation Nunez-Tesheira is expected to receive will be greater than what was initially assessed by Justice Kokaram over seven years ago, as the hospital and Dr Roopchand will be required to pay interest for the period they were challenging the outcome of the case.
Gulf View was represented by Mary O'Rourke, KC, David Boyle and Joseph Prince, while Katherine Deal, KC, represented Dr Roopchand.
Nunez-Tesheira's legal team also included Simon de la Bastide and Marcelle Ferdinand.