Judge rules in favour of San Carlos Estate owner

Justice Margaret Mohammed -

An Arima landowner has been successful in his lawsuit against the TT Electricity Commission (T&TEC) over land use and mineral rights.

Justice Margaret Mohammed ruled that Trevor Kerry had the right to use two lots of land at the San Carlos Estate for quarrying stone, sand, gravel, clay, earth and other minerals.

The decision comes after years of negotiations and correspondence between Kerry and T&TEC over the installation and maintenance of electrical infrastructure on the lands.

Kerry, represented by attorneys Nirad Samnadda-Ramrekersingh and Richard Freeman, argued that his ownership of the lands, under a series of deeds dating back to 1959, granted him full rights to extract quarry materials. He further contended that T&TEC had misunderstood the definition of “mines and minerals” in the relevant deeds, which he said did not include stone, sand, and similar materials.

T&TEC, represented by Keith Scotland, SC, and Asha Watkins-Monsterin, contended that Kerry had no legal basis to quarry the lands. They argued that the claim was an attempt to re-litigate matters already decided in a 2020 case involving other San Carlos parcels.

However, Justice Mohammed, after reviewing historical deeds and previous court rulings, clarified that a 1959 deed between Stollmeyer Ltd and Frank Kerry granted an undivided half share of “mines and minerals” limited to petroleum, bituminous, and hydrocarbon substances. Stone, sand, clay, gravel, and other earth materials were not included in that definition and remained fully under the ownership rights of the claimant for quarrying purposes.

The judge further confirmed that Kerry, through subsequent deeds, acquired Stollmeyer Ltd’s retained half-share of the estate’s minerals and the right to “dig and get from the said lands stone, sand, gravel, clay, earth and other minerals of similar nature.”

This included not only his own parcels (Lots D and G) but, with appropriate compensation to other beneficiaries, the right to extract materials from other parcels of the San Carlos Estate for operational purposes.

“In my opinion, having acquired the one half share of the mines and minerals from Stollmeyer Limited, if the claimant wanted to conduct activities consistent with the working and operation of the said mines and minerals, he could enter any other parcel of land, which he does not own, within the San Carlos Estate and exercise his right to ‘dig and get from the said lands stone, sand, gravel, clay, earth and other minerals of similar nature’ provided that it was in connection with working and operation of the said mines and minerals and subject to payment of compensation by the claimant to those beneficiaries for any such operation as provided for in the 1959 deed.

“The claimant also has the right to ‘dig and get from the said lands stone, sand, gravel, clay, earth and other minerals of similar nature’ in connection with the operation and workings of the mines and minerals in respect of the parcels conveyed to the other beneficiaries but he would have to compensate the other beneficiaries or their successors for any such digging and extraction, if done on their parcels.

“However as owner of the said lands, namely Lots D and G he has the right to ‘dig and get from the said lands stone, sand, gravel, clay, earth and other minerals of similar nature’ for quarrying purposes.”