Derek Achong

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) par­ty ac­tivist Bri­an Stone has been or­dered to pay over $400,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to Prime Min­is­ter  Dr Kei­th Row­ley for defama­tion. 

Al­though Row­ley ob­tained a de­fault judg­ment against Stone over com­ments he post­ed on his (Stone) Face­book page in 2017, well over a year ago, High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der on­ly de­cide on the com­pen­sa­tion owed to Row­ley in a writ­ten de­ci­sion de­liv­ered elec­tron­i­cal­ly, yes­ter­day. 

Stone, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as Caribbean New Me­dia Group (CN­MG) chair­man, ac­cused Row­ley of re­ceiv­ing bribes from a cer­tain seg­ment of so­ci­ety and of en­gag­ing in cor­rup­tion in re­la­tion to the con­struc­tion of a build­ing in west Trinidad. 

Stone gave a pub­lic apol­o­gy and re­trac­tion a lit­tle over a month be­fore Row­ley filed the law­suit. 

High Court Judge David Har­ris grant­ed Row­ley’s lawyers an or­der al­low­ing them to serve the law­suit in a se­ries of news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ments over a two-week pe­ri­od af­ter they un­suc­cess­ful­ly at­tempt­ed to phys­i­cal­ly serve it on him. 

Row­ley’s lawyers Michael Quam­i­na and Clay Hack­ett ob­tained the de­fault judg­ment on his be­half af­ter he (Stone) failed to sub­mit a de­fence to the claim as re­quired un­der the Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules. 

In her de­ci­sion, Alexan­der not­ed that while tes­ti­fy­ing be­fore her, Row­ley was es­pe­cial­ly ag­griev­ed by Stone’s al­le­ga­tions as he claimed to have been an an­ti-cor­rup­tion ad­vo­cate through­out his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, which has spanned more than 30 years. 

“The defam­a­to­ry state­ments that formed the bedrock of this mat­ter, there­fore, proved to be a source of dis­qui­et and shock, more par­tic­u­lar­ly as they were base­less and in­ju­ri­ous,” Alexan­der said. 

In her as­sess­ment, Alexan­der had to con­sid­er whether the apol­o­gy is­sued to Row­ley helped to mit­i­gate the dam­age to his rep­u­ta­tion. 

“In the present case, the court finds the apol­o­gy was prompt and gave full cov­er­age and re­trac­tion to all defam­a­to­ry state­ments made,” she said.

She not­ed that Row­ley was un­able to prove that the apol­o­gy was in­sin­cere. 

“The claimant did not bring any ev­i­dence to show a con­tin­u­a­tion of the defam­a­to­ry state­ments by the de­fen­dant af­ter the apol­o­gy and the court was un­will­ing to make un­found­ed as­sump­tions of which it had no proof,” she said. 

While Alexan­der said that the apol­o­gy helped to ame­lio­rate or soft the im­pact of the com­pen­sa­tion, she still or­dered to Stone to pay $300,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages. 

She al­so stat­ed that Row­ley was en­ti­tled to $50,000 in ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages for the diminu­tion of his self-es­teem and self-re­spect.

“There was a poignan­cy and clar­i­ty to his ev­i­dence of wound­ed pride and pub­lic hu­mil­i­a­tion, which the court ac­cept­ed as gen­uine,” she said. 

Alexan­der did refuse to grant Row­ley ex­em­plary dam­ages, which she not­ed were award­ed in defama­tion cas­es where a de­fen­dant’s con­duct is cal­cu­lat­ed to make a prof­it. 

“Whilst it was reck­less, there was no ev­i­dence seized up­on as a rev­enue-earn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty at the claimant’s ex­pense,” Alexan­der said. 

As part of her de­ci­sion, Alexan­der or­dered that Stone pay two and a half per­cent in­ter­est on the dam­ages be­tween Feb­ru­ary 2018 and yes­ter­day as well as the $35,078.01 in le­gal costs Row­ley in­curred in the law­suit. 

Stone was rep­re­sent­ed by Robin Mon­tano.