THA faces negligence lawsuit

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Plagued by haunt­ing “mem­o­ries of blood, hor­ror and death,” the fam­i­ly of An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie have ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion over the tragedy that claimed her life at Pi­geon Point Beach, To­ba­go, on April 8. The sev­en-year-old was struck and killed by a jet ski af­ter it ploughed past the rope de­mar­cat­ing a bathing-on­ly zone, slam­ming in­to An­gel­i­ca and three oth­er rel­a­tives.

In a 202-page pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, the Jo­gies be­gan le­gal pro­ceed­ings claim­ing neg­li­gence and breach of du­ty by the jet ski op­er­a­tor, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park. At­tor­neys ar­gued the in­ci­dent, while avoid­able, was a cul­mi­na­tion of in­sti­tu­tion­al fail­ures which ex­posed the pub­lic to the risk of in­jury and death.

The fam­i­ly is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Free­dom Law Cham­bers, head­ed by Anand Ramolo­gan, SC.

In the let­ter, An­gel­i­ca’s par­ents, Arnold Jo­gie and Sal­isha Nar­ine-Jo­gie, said the en­tire fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing their oth­er daugh­ter, An­geli­na, re­main trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent.

In a tes­ti­mo­ny, An­gel­i­ca’s moth­er said con­fir­ma­tion of her el­dest child’s death felt “like a knife pierced straight through my chest.” The fam­i­ly said the in­ci­dent has de­stroyed their lives and un­able to en­joy fam­i­ly gath­er­ings, recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties and so­cial events.  

An­gel­i­ca’s fa­ther, who was ren­dered un­con­scious af­ter be­ing hit by the jet ski, said the in­ci­dent has robbed him of his child and left him in emo­tion­al an­guish be­cause he could not pro­tect her from harm.

The fam­i­ly said An­gel­i­ca’s room re­mains un­touched with her toys and school books from San Fer­nan­do TML still in place “as though frozen in time from the day she left home.”

Their home, the Jo­gies con­tin­ued, feels emp­ty and de­void of life, laugh­ter and joy.

“There is now a si­lence where An­gel­i­ca’s voice ought to be.”

The fam­i­ly al­so ex­pressed con­cern for their oth­er daugh­ter, a claimant in the pro­ceed­ings, who will grow up with­out the com­pan­ion­ship of her sib­ling.

In the let­ter, the at­tor­neys re­count­ed the in­ci­dent and not­ed an hour-long de­lay for an am­bu­lance to ar­rive.

A 32-year-old male sus­pect from Canaan, who fled the scene af­ter the in­ci­dent, was named in the let­ter. 

He was ar­rest­ed hours af­ter the in­ci­dent while asleep at his home, but was re­leased by po­lice pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions and has still not been charged. 

Jo­gie’s at­tor­neys con­tend the jet ski op­er­a­tor drove the wa­ter­craft in a dan­ger­ous and reck­less man­ner; failed to com­ply with safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and de­mar­ca­tions; failed to slow down or turn to avoid col­li­sion; showed in­suf­fi­cient re­gard for the pres­ence of bathers; and failed to take rea­son­able care for the safe­ty of An­gel­i­ca, the claimants and oth­er bathers.

The Jo­gies claim the THA and Her­itage Park failed to take steps to en­sure that An­gel­i­ca, the claimants and oth­er bathers were safe from in­jury caused by jet skis.

At­tor­neys con­tend the THA ought to have known jet ski op­er­a­tions in close prox­im­i­ty pre­sent­ed a risk of in­jury and/or death. They added that the THA had pri­or no­tice of the safe­ty risk ow­ing to com­plaints, pre­vi­ous in­ci­dents and ju­di­cial rul­ings and should have act­ed in earnest and im­ple­ment­ed safe­ty mea­sures. 

The Jo­gies al­so blamed the THA and Her­itage Park for not en­sur­ing the phys­i­cal de­mar­ca­tions for the bathing area—such as buoys and ropes—were prop­er­ly main­tained, vis­i­ble and ef­fec­tive.

An­gel­i­ca’s moth­er, who was al­so in­jured by the jet ski, al­leged­ly suf­fered in­juries to her neck and spine and tem­porar­i­ly lost hear­ing in her left ear af­ter be­ing hit. The in­ci­dent, ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, has af­fect­ed Nar­ine-Jo­gie’s sleep, con­cen­tra­tion, emo­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty and dai­ly func­tions. She missed one month and two weeks of work af­ter the tragedy.

The let­ter not­ed Jo­gie suf­fered pain and dis­com­fort to his back, chest, left side, shoul­ders and mus­cles in the col­li­sion and con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence dis­com­fort. The air-con­di­tion­ing tech­ni­cian re­port­ed­ly missed one month and five days of work.

At­tor­neys said the claimants are all still re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment, and as­sess­ment of in­juries re­mains on­go­ing.

The Jo­gies are seek­ing dam­ages for the death of An­gel­i­ca; dam­ages for per­son­al in­juries; pain and suf­fer­ing; loss of earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty; loss of fu­ture earn­ings and loss of ameni­ty; and dam­ages for ner­vous shock and psy­chi­atric in­jury.

A spe­cial claim on be­half of An­gel­i­ca’s es­tate was made for “loss of earn­ing dur­ing the lost years” and “loss of ex­pec­ta­tion of life for $25,000” and/or what­ev­er sum deemed ap­pro­pri­ate by the court.

The par­ties were giv­en 28 days to re­spond to the let­ter and state their po­si­tion on li­a­bil­i­ty. 

“If there is no ad­mis­sion of li­a­bil­i­ty, we shall pro­ceed to file our client’s claim with­out fur­ther no­tice,” the let­ter said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Sec­re­tary of Le­gal Af­fairs Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace told Guardian Me­dia she was not aware of the claim, but said the THA had sup­port­ed the fam­i­ly as best it could giv­en the cir­cum­stances. She said the fam­i­ly re­mains in their prayers as they cope with their loss.

She urged Par­lia­ment to pass the Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park Bill or give the THA the au­ton­o­my to en­act leg­is­la­tion to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty. 

In 2010, Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones found the THA and Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park li­able for a 2007 boat­ing in­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point Bay, which left one teenag­er paral­ysed and his Span­ish girl­friend maimed. An ap­peal by the THA was thrown out by Jus­tice Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon. The mat­ter was set­tled out of court.

Fol­low­ing the ac­ci­dent in­volv­ing Jo­gie, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine warned that if the THA was sued, he would in­struct THA at­tor­neys to sue cen­tral gov­ern­ment and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie. He al­so ar­gued that de­spite re­peat­ed com­plaints about un­law­ful jet ski op­er­a­tions at Pi­geon Point, law en­force­ment failed to ad­dress those con­cerns.

Ef­forts to con­tact Au­gus­tine and the po­lice for a re­sponse were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.