Court awards over $100K to women injured by teen driving father’s car

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

A man has been or­dered to pay a lit­tle over $100,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to two women who were in­jured af­ter his teenage daugh­ter crashed in­to them while dri­ving his car. 

Mark Mc In­tyre was or­dered to pay the com­pen­sa­tion to Kat­sha James and An­so­nia Pierre, af­ter High Court Judge Joan Charles up­held their case against him and his daugh­ter, Jen­dayi, last week. 

The law­suit re­lat­ed to an ac­ci­dent which oc­curred along Char­lotte Street in Port-of-Spain on De­cem­ber 15, 2017. 

James and Pierre were walk­ing on the east­ern side of the road to­wards In­de­pen­dence Square when they were struck by a ve­hi­cle dri­ven by then-18-year-old Jen­dayi, who had a dri­ver’s per­mit for less than a year. 

Jen­dayi drove away and on­ly stopped af­ter eye­wit­ness­es chased af­ter her and man­aged to block her ve­hi­cle. 

Pierre suf­fered soft tis­sue in­juries to his back and ab­domen. 

James sus­tained more se­ri­ous in­juries and suf­fered a mis­car­riage. 

They both filed sep­a­rate neg­li­gence claims against the Mc In­tyres and Bankers In­sur­ance, which in­sured the ve­hi­cle, seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion. 

In de­fence of the law­suit, Jen­dayi de­nied any wrong­do­ing. 

She claimed that she was dri­ving slow­ly along the street and blared her horn to alert pedes­tri­ans that were walk­ing in the mid­dle of the road near her car. 

She claimed that her left wing mir­ror hit James on her arm and de­nied that her ve­hi­cle came in con­tact with Pierre. 

She said James’ in­juries were caused by her (James) neg­li­gence and de­nied that she (James) suf­fered a mis­car­riage as a re­sult of the ac­ci­dent. 

The com­pa­ny filed an an­cil­lary claim against Mc In­tyre claim­ing that it should not be held li­able for any com­pen­sa­tion, as his daugh­ter was not cov­ered un­der the ve­hi­cle’s in­sur­ance pol­i­cy. 

It not­ed that the pol­i­cy on­ly per­mit­ted Mc In­tyre to al­low third par­ties to use the ve­hi­cle if they are over 25 years old and have a dri­ver’s per­mit for more than three years. 

The com­pa­ny’s claim was up­held by Jus­tice Charles while the sub­stan­tive case was be­ing de­ter­mined. 

In de­cid­ing the case against the Mc In­tyres, Jus­tice Charles ruled that Pierre and James were more cred­i­ble wit­ness­es than Jen­dayi. 

“The fact that this De­fen­dant was chased by strangers sup­ports the Claimants’ case that they had been hit and knocked down by Ms McIn­tyre, who drove off with­out stop­ping,” Jus­tice Charles said.

She al­so found a causal link be­tween James’ mis­car­riage and the ac­ci­dent.  

James was award­ed $70,000 in com­pen­sa­tion, while $15,000 was or­dered for Pierre. 

The Mc In­tyres were al­so or­dered to pay $14,000 in le­gal costs to each of the women. 

The women were rep­re­sent­ed by An­cil Moses, while Robin Ra­moutar and Can­dace Dean rep­re­sent­ed the Mc In­tyres.