By Trudy Simpson, Staff Reporter
OPERATORS OF the defunct Eureka Medical Limited are suing former landlord, Life of Jamaica (LoJ), for almost $94 million.
Information from law firm Gifford, Thompson and Bright, which is representing Eureka's former chairman and director, Neville Hume, indicates Eureka is suing for damages for breach of contract and/or trespass and wrongful eviction in the sum of $93,804,770.
Eureka is also asking for interest on the damages and for other costs.
Eureka, a medical diagnostic facility, was forced to shut its doors on March 13, when LoJ, an insurance company which owned the property on which it was located, terminated the centre's lease and took possession of the property, stating that Eureka owed money.
But operators are arguing in their suit that the shutdown was wrong based on certain discussions held between both parties up to that time. They said Eureka Medical should have been given at least a three-month removal notice.
Janice Grant-Taffe, legal counsel at LoJ, said earlier this month that the company was aware of the civil suit but could not give further information because the matter was now before the court.
INDIVIDUAL LAWSUITS
But while Eureka's former operators prepare to battle their ex-landlord, the medical centre's ex-employees are preparing to file their own lawsuit.
Fed up with the long wait for redundancy payments they claim are owed to them, several ex-employees said they will be seeking legal advice to get paid.
These ex-employees say that more than six months after the centre's closure, workers, who came to work on March 13 to find locked doors, have not seen either a return to their jobs or one cent of redundancy payments.
