High Court halts workmen’s compensation claim over Paria diving tragedy

2026-03-27 - 03:03

Senior Reporter derek.achong@guardian.co.tt A workmen’s compensation claim, brought on behalf of the widow of one of the victims of the diving tragedy at Paria Fuel Trading Company’s Pointe-a-Pierre facility in 2022, has been halted. On Wednesday, High Court Master Wrenerson Lochan granted the stay in relation to the claim brought by Celisha Kurban, over her husband Fyzal’s death, based on an application made by lawyers for his former employer, Land and Marine Contracting Services Ltd (LMCS). In the application, brought in December last year, LMCS’s lawyer Dinesh Rambally said the claim should not be allowed to proceed based on pending negligence lawsuits brought against LMCS and Paria by the family of his deceased colleague Rishi Naggasar and survivor Christopher Boodram. While the application was pending, attorneys Prakash Ramadhar and Saira Lakhan filed similar claims in relation to Kurban and his deceased colleague, Yusuf Henry, before the four-year statutory deadline for such a lawsuit elapsed. They will now have to consider applying to have the negligence cases consolidated so they could eventually be heard together. Master Lochan agreed with Rambally that allowing both sets of litigation to continue in parallel would result in duplication, increased legal costs and time, and the possibility of inconsistent findings on central legal issues. He noted that both sets of cases would require complex and extensive expert and technical evidence. He suggested that the workmen’s compensation claims could be considered after the negligence lawsuits are determined, as the latter would help streamline the legal issues in the former. The stay came after Master Lochan previously rejected an application from Paria to extract itself from the Workmen’s Compensation Act claims brought by Kurban and Henry’s families. The legislation provides for compensation to be paid to workers or their families if they die or are left permanently disabled during an incident while working. Claims are not dependent on the employer being found negligent in relation to the injury or on an employee being found to have contributed to their injury. In cases where a dead workman leaves behind dependants who were wholly dependent on his earnings, the employer is required to pay a lump sum of 36 months’ earnings. The judicial officers would assess an appropriate portion of the maximum amount if the dead workman does not have any dependants or if his/her dependants were not wholly dependent on him/her. Workers, who survive but are left totally or partially disabled, can potentially receive a larger payout based on their dependants and the extent of their disability. On February 25, 2022, Henry, Kurban, Boodram, Nagassar and Kazim Ali Jr, whose father owns LMCS, were sucked into the 30-inch-diameter pipeline where they were performing maintenance work at Paria’s facility. All were seriously injured, but Boodram managed to make his way to the entrance of the pipeline and was rescued. LMCS officials were blocked from attempting to rescue their colleagues. Three of the divers’ bodies were recovered on February 28, while Nagassar’s was recovered the following day. Cabinet initially appointed a five-member team to investigate the incident, but eventually appointed a Commission of Enquiry (CoE) due to public criticism. In its report, the commission, chaired by King’s Counsel Jerome Lynch, presented several dozen recommendations, including charges under the OSH Act. Paria’s then-general manager, Mushtaq Mohammed, its terminal operations manager Collin Piper, LMCS director Kazim Ali Snr, and the companies were slapped with a series of charges under the OSH Act. A magistrate is still expected to consider the future of the charges as they were filed before the Privy Council determined a landmark case over the time limit for bringing such prosecutions. Before Boodram and the divers’ families filed their negligence claims, LMCS wrote to their lawyers suggesting that they should direct their legal action for negligence to Paria. LMCS’s lawyers dismissed any imputation of culpability attached to it by the commission and claimed that Paria should be held solely liable for what transpired. They suggested that even if their clients were partially responsible for the initial accident, as alleged, Paria’s handling of the response absolved it. LMCS did admit that they owe their workers’ families and Boodram for workmen’s compensation, but claimed that payments could not be made until its claim to its insurer is determined. The company claimed that it pursued litigation over the issue after it made a claim shortly after the incident, but did not receive a response. LMCS officially raised the issue after Boodram and Naggasar’s family filed the lawsuits and are expected to do so again in relation to Kurban and Henry’s cases. In early April last year, former prime minister Stuart Young announced that the Cabinet had decided to make a one-time ex-gratia payment of $1 million each to Boodram and his colleagues’ families without admitting liability. He claimed that the delay in the settlement of the cases was due to insurers for LMCS and Paria disagreeing on which company was liable. However, the payments were not made when there was a change of government later that month. In January, the current Government led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar made good on the promise as the ex-gratia payment was made to Boodram and his colleagues’ families. Kurban was also represented by Devi Ramnarine, while Patrice Ayong-Chee appeared alongside Rambally for LMCS. Paria was represented by Stephen Singh and Kendra Mark Gordon.