Sandy Lane ordered to pay housekeeper damages after CCJ ruling

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has upheld a ruling that luxury hotel Sandy Lane must pay $100 000 in interim damages as well as court costs to a former housekeeper, Sonia Eversley, who was injured on the job in 2010.

The court rejected Sandy Lane’s appeal, affirming that the hotel breached its duty to provide a safe workplace when a marble piece fell on Eversley while she was cleaning. The decision emphasises the application of the principle of res ipsa loquitur, which does not require explicit pleading in negligence cases.

This case arose from an accident at Sandy Lane where Eversley was injured on December 4 2010, when a piece of marble installed above the doorway of room 417 fell on her while she was cleaning. She filed a claim against the exclusive resort, alleging negligence, breach of its duties under the Occupiers Liability Act, and breach of its duty to provide a safe place of work.

The trial judge in the High Court found that Sandy Lane acted reasonably and responsibly in entrusting the construction of the marble door frame to a reputable independent contractor and that the worker did not establish that the hotel breached the common duty of care under the Occupiers Liability Act. But the judge ruled in favour of Eversley on the issue of a breach of the duty to provide a safe place and system of work. The judge also found for her by applying the maxim of ‘res ipsa loquitur’ — ‘the thing explains itself’– despite it not being specifically pleaded. The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court judge’s decision, prompting the resort to appeal to the CCJ.

The primary issues before the CCJ were: (i) whether the hotel breached its duty to provide a safe workplace; (ii) whether the trial judge was correct in applying the principle of res ipsa loquitur, despite it not being pleaded; (iii) whether the Court of Appeal erred in affirming the trial judge’s factual findings and inferences; and (iv) whether the trial was conducted unfairly, as alleged by the hotel.

Shortly after the hearing, the CCJ dismissed the appeal with reasons to follow and ordered an interim payment of $100 000 to the housekeeper.

CCJ Justice Andrew Burgess, delivering the lead judgment in the majority decision on Tuesday, noted that res ipsa loquitur is not a distinct, substantive rule of law, but an application of an inferential reasoning process, emphasising that the burden of proof remains with the claimant throughout. He rejected Sandy Lane’s argument that res ipsa loquitur must be explicitly pleaded.

The CCJ found that the employee’s claim, which described how a marble frame suddenly fell on her, adequately set out the necessary facts. Barbados’ Supreme Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2008 (CPR) provided no support for Sandy Lane’s argument that their introduction changed the position at common law to now require a claimant to plead ‘res ipsa loquitur’ in negligence cases.

In response to Sandy Lane’s challenge to the factual findings of both the High Court and the Court of Appeal, Justice Burgess reiterated the CCJ’s established principle that it is only in exceptional circumstances that this court would review concurrent findings of fact. There were no exceptional circumstances in this case warranting interference with the trial judge’s factual conclusions, the CCJ reasoned.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Adrian Saunders, CCJ president, found that the High Court judge and the Court of Appeal properly assessed the evidence and reached reasonable conclusions. Sandy Lane’s initial position was that Eversley was wholly or partly to blame for the accident, yet it made no attempt to provide any evidence whatsoever to substantiate that she was.

Although the hotel conducted a full review of the accident, which was captured in a written report, it did not proffer that report in evidence or explain its absence. Its chief witness either did not refresh her memory from it before coming to court or was deliberately not being forthright with the court about its findings.

On the issue of ‘res ipsa loquitur’, Justice Saunders agreed that it is not absolutely required to be pleaded. The maxim is simply a specific instance of circumstantial evidence that should be left to the normal operation of the law of evidence governing circumstantial evidence generally. The CCJ president rejected the hotel’s complaint that it was denied a fair trial, noting that Sandy Lane had ample opportunity to respond to the inference of negligence.

In the sole dissenting opinion among the five-member panel, Justice Denys Barrow found that the evidence adduced did not support a conclusion of negligence against Sandy Lane. He disagreed with the trial judge’s conclusions, the Court of Appeal’s endorsement of those conclusions, and the application of ‘res ipsa loquitur’. The judge noted that the experts on both sides had agreed that the cause of the marble falling was that the adhesive agent had failed and considered that the courts below had erred in failing to act on this evidence. The judge found that the principle of res ipsa loquitur was misapplied, noting that the maxim applies only when the cause of an accident is unknown, which was not the situation in this case. Justice Barrow rejected the trial judge’s inference that no inspections had been conducted simply because no direct evidence was led regarding room 417 where the housekeeper was injured.

He emphasised the principle of continuity, which presumes that longstanding practices continue unless proven otherwise and noted that the claimant had been injured while doing the cleaning after which followed standard inspection. On the issue of foreseeability, the judge found that the accident was not something the hotel could have reasonably anticipated or prevented, noting that there had been no previous or subsequent incidents of marble falling. He would therefore have allowed the appeal.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb