Former PM Rowley wins land dispute case at Privy Council

Derek Achong

Senior Reporter

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Former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley has emerged victorious in a protracted legal dispute with a couple over their long-standing interests in purchasing portions of a large estate in Mason Hall, Tobago.

Delivering a judgment yesterday, five Law Lords of the United Kingdom-based Privy Council upheld Rowley’s appeal against Christo and Jocelyn Gift.

Lord Andrew Burrows, who delivered the board’s judgment, ruled that two out of three local Court of Appeal judges were wrong to have overturned a High Court judge who had upheld Rowley’s interest in completing the sale of a larger portion of the estate.

“Although the majority correctly set out the law on the need for restraint before an appellate court can intervene in respect of findings of fact, the majority did not correctly apply that law,” Lord Burrows said.

He said the judges erred in doing so because they were of a different view than the judge and their colleague Justice Gillian Lucky, who dissented.

“Determination of the facts is pre-eminently a matter for the trial judge, who will have had the advantage of seeing and hearing all the relevant evidence,” Lord Burrows said.

The legal dispute relates to a parcel of land in Mason Hall, Tobago, in which both Rowley and the Gifts had an interest.

The land was part of the 882-acre Alma Estate, which was owned by Frank Latour. In 1975, Latour agreed to sell a 56.5-acre plot to Rowley at a rate of $300 per acre.

The land was not immediately conveyed to Rowley, as Latour requested a survey to help define one of the boundaries of the lot being purchased by Rowley.

Latour died before the procedure was completed and his daughter Marcelle was appointed as the executrix of his estate.

In 1998, Latour’s daughter entered into an agreement to sell the Gifts the estate, excluding Rowley’s portion, at a rate of $5,000 per acre. They paid a $30,000 deposit.

Before the sale was concluded, however, Latour’s daughter informed the Gifts that she wished to expand Rowley’s portion, as the survey showed his plot was in fact a little over 85 acres. The Gifts claimed that she then told them she was no longer interested in completing the sale and was willing to refund their deposit.

The Gifts filed the case seeking specific performance of the sale agreement between them and Latour’s daughter.

Their case was first rejected by Justice Nadia Kangaloo, who found that the portion they were entitled to purchase was dependent on Rowley’s portion that was assessed in the new survey.

Latour’s daughter passed away after the trial of the case and Graham Mitchell was appointed to serve as the legal representative of her father’s estate.

In a majority judgment in December 2023, Appellate judges Alan Mendonca and James Aboud upheld the Gift’s appeal over being entitled to a larger portion of the estate. They found that the judge failed to properly consider correspondence between Rowley and Latour from the 1980s over the resurvey.

“It was not permissible in the face of the evidence as a whole, which includes the correspondence, for the trial judge to have come to the conclusion that the agreement between the First Respondent (Latour’s daughter) and the Appellants (the Gifts) for the sale to them of the remaining lands was subject to the resurvey of the lands the deceased had agreed to sell to the Second Respondent (Rowley),” Justice Mendonca said.

Justice Lucky delivered a dissenting judgment, suggesting that the trial judge was correct.

Lord Burrows and his colleagues agreed with Rowley’s lawyers, led by Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, that the majority in the Court of Appeal and the Gifts placed too much emphasis on the sale agreement between his client and Latour.

“Even if Ms Latour had been mistaken (contrary to Justice Kangaloo’s findings) as to what had been agreed between her father and Dr Rowley, it was her and the Gifts’ objective understanding in 1998 that had to be focused on; and Justice Kangaloo made findings as to that understanding, which the Court of Appeal was not entitled to reject,” Lord Burrows said.

Rowley was also represented by Dr Margaret Rose and Robert Strang. The Gifts were represented by Anand Ramlogan, SC, and Daniel Goldblatt.