The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

A WOMAN is demanding that an American billionaire comply with a $400,000 damages order that was affirmed by the Court of Appeal concerning the dislocated knee she suffered when slipping on gravy at his then hotel-based restaurant.

Laniccina Braithwaite-Adderley was near tears when speaking to The Tribune yesterday about a decade of unsuccessful attempts to have former owner of the Crystal Palace Casino, Phil Ruffin, assume responsibility for the injuries she sustained at the Seaside Buffet in March 2004.

She said the extent of going to the press was “never my intent” but said that “no one seems to understand my plight.”

“Why is it that in this country, people have to expose truth when doing the right thing is so simple?” she asked.

Mrs Braithwaite-Adderley had slipped and fallen on the property, which he owned at the time. She required medical attention but Mr Ruffin had denied liability for the accident until December 2008 before the matter was to go to trial. She was supposed to have surgery in 2005 but could not afford to pay on her own.

The Supreme Court Registrar awarded her $273,000 in general damages and $145,120 for special damages in respect of the injury, loss and damage claimed.

For fear of being targeted, Mrs Braithwaite-Adderley agreed only to be photograph below the waist. However, she says that the ordeal she has experienced since then “has been a trying and taxing one.”

“I have been waiting for ten years for justice and yet still I have not gotten any satisfaction on my behalf,” she said.

“Since March 2004, I suffered immensely and have been left traumatised and injured. My life has not been the same ever since this accident. And because of it, I cannot function as a normal productive person in society,” she added.

“Since the injury, I have not been able to work due to the condition of my knee, which has led to ten years of misery and poverty. I am unable to buy food or meet the basic needs of my minor child and myself. And food is important because I am not able to keep my diabetes under control due to the lack of mobility and lack of proper nutrients to sustain me,” she further noted.

“I am so tired of standing in the welfare line to seek assistance and have to be talked down to because I am seeking much needed help. Let alone NIB refused to offer any assistance because I can bathe myself, use a computer and my injury was not an industrial accident.”

She also noted that it has been especially difficult walking her son to and from school everyday.

“The main issue that I have is the fact that a whole ten years has passed and I have not been compensated for my injury. After all the ups and downs with the different judges, different courts and all the meetings and letters, not a penny. I truly wonder if there is justice in this island of the Bahamas.”

Contact was made with Davis & Co, law firm of the Deputy Minister Philip ‘Brave’ Davis, in order to speak to Darren Ellis, who presided over the matter which was concluded in the Court of Appeal in March 2013. But he was said to be off the island until Monday. 

Last March, appellate court justices Anita Allen, Christopher Blackman and Abdulai Conteh ruled on the appeal of Mr Ruffin, who challenged the Supreme Court registrar’s decision to award $400,000.

The issue for the court to decide was whether, after admitting complete liability at trial in Supreme Court, contributory negligence could be raised for the first time on an assessment of damages and whether the Registrar erred by failing to consider intervening medical negligence.

Counsel for Mr Ruffin contended that the Registrar failed to take into account an intervening act of medical negligence and as such, the award of damages should be reduced.

Pamela Thompson, counsel for Mrs Braithwaite-Adderley, argued that it was not open to the appellant to make these claims on appeal.

The court ruled that where a judgement has settled any issue on which an allegation of contributory negligence would depend, contributory negligence may not be raised at the assessment of damages stage.

The appellant during trial, they said, admitted liability without reservation, doing so with full knowledge of all the injuries specifically pleaded by the respondent in her Statement of Claim. This admission settled any issue on which an allegation of contributory negligence could depend.

As such, the court concluded, it was not open to the appellant to raise these issues at the assessment stage. The appellate court went on to dismiss the appeal and affirmed the Registrar’s awarding of damages and further awarded costs of the legal battle to the respondents.

However, Mrs Braithwaite-Adderley said it has been more than a year since the ruling was handed down and she has yet to see the order complied with.

“I need results and I can not wait another ten years to continue to suffer at the mercy of people. I am getting older and my leg is getting worse. But most of all, I can’t sit down and allow this injustice to continue to be done to me,” she said.

“According to Mr Davis, he loves people and the motto of his political party is ‘We Believe in Bahamians’. I am one and am asking for swift justice. If I was a foreigner the matter would have been dealt with and settled in a matter of weeks. Whereas for me, it has taken years and  still no one cares about this black Bahamian woman who continues to suffer. Mr Ruffin is a billionaire who can afford to pay a settlement.”