The Tribune

By Neil Hartnell

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A “vexatious” litigant has lost his latest bid to be declared owner of some 2,000 acres at the former Ginn project despite calls dating back to 2018 that he be barred from launching such actions.

Ricardo F. Pratt, described in earlier Supreme Court rulings as a Freeport-residing “businessman”, failed to persuade the Chief Justice in a verdict handed down last week that he has “better title” to large land parcels that are critical pieces of the West End project that has been seeking a new developer/purchaser for more than a decade.

Sir Ian Winder’s September 15, 2023, judgment stemmed from a legal action initiated by Mr Pratt on October 28, 2019. That is one of around ten Supreme Court lawsuits that the latter has either initiated, or been part of, over the past 16 years with each one challenging the ownership rights of Ginn and its successors to the same parcel of land - the so-called ‘John Bootle Tract’ - and claiming he has better title to it.

None of these actions have succeeded, with Sir Ian’s ruling last week merely the latest legal reverse Mr Pratt has suffered. The Chief Justice, noting that the west Grand Bahama real estate involved had been the subject of previous legal actions and “unsuccessful scrutiny challenges” by Mr Pratt, said succinctly: “At some point litigation must come to an end and the parties accept the result.”

Mr Pratt, who could not be reached for comment, is showing no signs of doing so, as Sir Ian’s ruling reveals he has launched another legal action - this one dating from 2020, and which has yet to be heard by the Supreme Court - after the claim that sparked the latest ruling.

Tribune Business can reveal this is despite major Bahamian commercial law firms, which represent or have represented Ginn and its successors, including its investment bank financing partner, Lubert Adler, urging the Attorney General’s Office to apply for a Supreme Court Order that would declare Mr Pratt “a frivolous and vexatious” litigant.

This, if granted, would block him from bringing fresh challenges to the former Ginn project’s ownership of several thousand acres of West End real estate unless he first obtains the Supreme Court’s permission to do so. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told this newspaper the issue needs to be addressed urgently because the constant barrage of litigation is further undermining already-complicated efforts to finally secure a new developer for the project.

“It’s a serious problem,” they said of Mr Pratt’s seemingly never-ending litigation, arguing that it was creating uncertainty for buyers over whether they can obtain clear title to the property. “It’s a cloud. It’s a cloud over that land. It makes people nervous. I think it’s having a major effect.”

The Attorney General’s Office initially seemed to agree with advocacy from both the Graham Thompson & Company and Dupuch & Turnquest law firms that meaning Mr Pratt continues to litigate an issue that is “res judicata”, meaning ownership of the ‘John Bootle Track’ has already been decided - in this case in Ginn and its successors favour by a 2017 Supreme Court judgment from Justice Estelle Gray-Evans.

With the issue now decided, and Mr Pratt having withdrawn his appeal against Justice Gray-Evans’ ruling, it in theory should not be pursued further. However, both law firms argued that he continues to try and re-litigate the matter, and legal documents obtained by Tribune Business show the Attorney General’s Office initiated legal action on February 3, 2020, to have Mr Pratt declared a vexatious litigant.

Lenette King, an attorney with the Attorney General’s Office, alleged in an affidavit dated the same day, asserted: “Ricardo F. Pratt, the defendant herein, has habitually and persistently - and without reasonable grounds - instituted vexatious legal proceedings in The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.”

The Supreme Court Act’s section 29 stipulates that only the Attorney General’s Office can initiate legal proceedings to have someone declared a “vexatious” litigant and blocked from bringing further action without judicial approval. However, this newspaper understands that the case against Mr Pratt has not moved forward, with the Attorney General’s Office last said to be awaiting a hearing date from the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the legal battles have persisted.

Both law firms affirmed they were not seeking to block anybody’s access to justice, but argued that Mr Pratt’s repeated attempts to challenge ownership of the same Ginn parcel despite Justice Gray-Evans ruling were wasting court resources and time, contributing to the case backlog and resulting in unnecessary legal expenses while also calling the land’s title into question.

Robert Adams KC, then a Graham, Thompson & Co partner (now with Delaney Partners), wrote to former attorney general Carl Bethel KC on January 28, 2019, on behalf of several client entities that hold the Ginn project’s real estate. “It is our belief that our clients have been - and continue to be - harassed by Mr Pratt as it relates to their fee simple ownership of certain properties situated in the western end of the island......

“While it is not our clients’ desire to diminish a person’s right to initiate legal proceedings, it is, however, in our view, crucial that the justice system, chiefly in our jurisdiction, limit vexatious litigants to, among others, avert the erosion of community confidence in the justice system which is likely to result if a party is permitted to continually commence litigation against others without reasonable grounds.

“Such proceedings, undoubtedly, result in significant costs and a further reduction of legal resources.” Calling on the Attorney General’s Office to initiate proceedings to have Mr Pratt declared “a vexatious litigant”, Mr Adams detailed five legal actions the latter had launch or was part of. He added that they all had “a clear commonality, which is a repetitive reference to the John Bootle Tract” - the same tract that featured heavily in Sir Ian’s judgment last week.

Arguing that Justice Gray-Evans’ ruling was “conclusive”, and that Mr Pratt was not appealing, Mr Adams continued: “In the circumstances, the plaintiff ought not be at liberty to continue pleading unfounded assertions against our clients, or others, relative to the John Bootle Tract or any tract of land for which he does not hold title.”

Similar concerns were raised by Terence Gape, the Dupuch & Turnquest attorney and partner, in a February 9, 2018, letter to the late chief justice, Stephen Isaacs, in which he identified at least seven legal actions launched by Mr Pratt since 2007 “alleging he is the owner in fee simple in possession of some several hundred acres of property located in West End, informally and widely referred to and known as ‘the Ginn property’”.

Asserting that the situation amounts to “a mockery of our judiciary”, Mr Gape said the claims brought were “groundless and unfounded” especially since they had been determined as such by Justice Gray-Evans’ 2017 ruling on Mr Pratt’s 2011 action. As a result, he branded the continuing claims as “an abuse of the process of the court” and argued would be “an absolute affront to justice” to have them heard by the court system.

“We are also concerned, as officers of the court, that the court is having to divert the resources of the Supreme Court registry and Supreme Court staff in dealing with these actions which are taking up an inordinate and unnecessary amount of the court’s resources and time with no benefit or advantage,” Mr Gape warned over five years ago. “Such attention and resources ought to, and should be, paid to cases of real merit which warrant a hearing...

“The 2007 action, the 2013 action, the 2015 action and now the 2017 action and the 2017 action part two all concern the same cause of action already determined in the 2017 judgment with regards to the tracts of land referred to as ‘the John Bootle tract’ and ‘the property’, allowing Mr Pratt to continue as a frivolous and vexatious litigant in the aforementioned actions, enabling his abuse of the process of the court with the filing of each pleading.”

Justice Gray-Evans, in her 2017 ruling, noted that Mr Pratt based his title ownership claim on the assertion that he is a “direct descendant” and heir of John Bootle, who received the original Crown grant to the tract of land. He also appeared as the administrator of the estate of Ruel Pratt, his grandfather.

However, the judge found that Mr Pratt’s “pleaded chain of title is so fragmented and/or disjointed, and contains so many irreconcilable discrepancies that it would be unsafe” to find he had proven his land ownership claim on the basis of being a John Bootle descendant. He had also failed to prove any documentary title, and Justice Gray-Evans found the Ruel Pratt estate had no interest in the John Bootle Tract or ‘The Property’ and was “not the paper title owner”.

“The plaintiff [Mr Pratt] has failed to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that he is the owner of the John Bootle Tract,” the judge concluded. However, in the 2019 action that the Chief Justice ruled on last week, Mr Pratt came back at the John Bootle Tract from a different angle - this time as the administrator to George Johnson Bootle’s estate, a descendant of John Bootle, rather than the Ruel Pratt estate.

Mr Pratt alleged that he “has a better documentary title” to the 1,450-acre John Bootle Tract than one of the Ginn project affiliates, LRA-OBB (Lubert Adler-Old Bahama Bay) Ltd, along with 146-acre and 500-acre parcels identified as being part of the ‘John D. Smith’ Tract. He also sought orders that a variety of real estate transactions that assembled the land for the development were “null, void and of no effect” or breached the Fraudulent Conveyances Act.

Sir Ian noted that the land involved “has been the subject of attention by these courts at the instance of Mr Ricardo Pratt” in either his personal capacity or representing someone’s estate. And he pointed out that the title certificates in question, confirming the ownership of Ginn and its successors, “have been the subject of unsuccessful scrutiny challenges before the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal”.

The Chief Justice found there was “an obvious evidential shortfall” that Mr Pratt could “not have surmounted”, and added: “The plaintiff has the burden of proving the claims made in this action. He raises claims involving forged documents, deceit, unlawful means conspiracy and other tortious allegations which attract heightened levels of scrutiny as it relates to proof. He has, however, led no real evidence to prove any of them... The allegations have been left unproven.”

As a result, Sir Ian dismissed Mr Pratt’s latest claim and awarded legal costs against him in favour of LRA-OBB Ltd.