Derek Achong

The Court of Ap­peal has sug­gest­ed that at­tor­neys for the State and a Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) em­ploy­ee, who was in­jured af­ter falling on the job, en­gage in dis­cus­sions as she can no longer pur­sue a law­suit over the in­ci­dent due to a pro­ce­dur­al is­sue. 
Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux and Char­maine Pem­ber­ton gave the sug­ges­tion yes­ter­day as they dis­missed Can­dice Hoyte’s ap­peal over a tri­al judge’s re­fusal to al­low her pur­sue her law­suit against the SSA. 
“I am not say­ing ac­cept li­a­bil­i­ty, I was care­ful not to say that, but meet and speak,” Pem­ber­ton said as she not­ed that the sug­ges­tion should not be mis­con­strued as the court up­hold­ing Hy­ote’s sub­stan­tive case. 
Bereaux sup­port­ed his col­league as he not­ed that al­though Hoyte’s in­juries were se­ri­ous, she can­not re­file the case as it went be­yond the statu­to­ry four-year lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for bring­ing law­suits against the State. 
“Let’s see what we can do then,” Bereaux said. 
In the ap­peal, Hoyte’s at­tor­neys were con­tend­ing that the tri­al judge, who han­dled Hoyte’s case, got it wrong when she ruled that she (Hoyte) could not sue the SSA as it is not a dis­tinct cor­po­rate en­ti­ty.
The ap­peal pan­el agreed with the judge’s find­ings on the is­sue. 
How­ev­er, Bereaux and Pem­ber­ton did agree to up­hold the State’s counter ap­peal against the judge’s cor­re­spond­ing rul­ing that the SSA was not an agent of the State and could not be sued through the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. 
Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions on be­half of the SSA on the is­sue in March, State at­tor­ney Ran­dal Hec­tor claimed that while the SSA did not have a le­gal per­son­al­i­ty, the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty en­ti­ty per­formed core func­tions of the Gov­ern­ment. 
He ad­mit­ted that be­cause it had the pow­er to in­fringe on cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, the Gov­ern­ment worked close­ly with it. 
Hoyte was rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC, and Clay Hack­ett while Cherise Nixon, Tra­cy Vi­dale and Kendra Mark rep­re­sent­ed the SSA.