By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterMETROPOLITAN PARKS and Markets (MPM) has lost its appeal against a Supreme Court ruling this year that it should pay $5.5 million to 52-year-old Percival Swaby, one of its workers whose legs had to be amputated as a result of injuries suffered when he fell from the back of one of MPM's trucks.
Swaby, through his lawyers Christopher Samuda, Manley Nicholson and Stacy Ann Saunders, had asked the Court of Appeal not to disturb the Supreme Court award because MPM did not provide a safe system of work for the claimant. The lawyers submitted that Swaby had to travel on the back of the truck and no secured seats or rails were placed on it.
NOT LIABLE
MPM had appealed on the grounds that it was not liable to pay damages for the injuries which Swaby suffered. Mrs. Justice Almarie Sinclair-Haynes had made the award in the Supreme Court against the defendants MPM and its employers Errol Laing, a supervisor and Carl Waisome, the truck driver.
Swaby testified in the Supreme Court that up to the time of the accident on June 9, 2000 he was employed to MPM for 20 years. He said he was travelling in the back of a crane truck along Spanish Town Road, St. Andrew when the truck went over a bump in the road and he fell from it. The wheels of the truck ran over his legs and both legs had to be amputated. He said no seats or rails were provided for workers on the truck.
INTOXICATED
MPM, which was represented by attorney-at-law Garth McBean, contended in the Supreme Court and in the Court of Appeal that Swaby was intoxicated and was moving around in the back of the truck and was therefore responsible for the accident.
Miss Justice Sinclair-Haynes found that Swaby was 30 per cent responsible for his injuries because he was intoxicated.
The Court of Appeal comprising Mr. Justice Clarence Walker, Mr. Justice Seymour Panton and Mr. Justice Howard Cooke found that Laing and Waisome were not liable for Swaby's injuries. The Court upheld the Supreme Court award of $5.5 million against MPM and ruled that Swaby was 30 per cent responsible for the accident. The ruling means that the award will be reduced by 30 per cent.
