Privy Council backs Rowley in Tobago land dispute

Former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley holds a lamb on his farm in Tobago in 2020. -

THE Privy Council has ruled in favour of former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley, overturning a decision by the Court of Appeal in a 16-year legal wrangling over land at the Alma Estate in Tobago.

The case began in 2009 when Christo and Jocelyn Gift sued Rowley and Marcelle Latour, the daughter of the late landowner Frank Latour. The Gifts claimed that a 1998 agreement they signed with Marcelle included a large portion of land that Rowley said had already been promised to him back in 1975.

At the centre of the dispute was how much land Rowley had agreed to buy. The Gifts said it was 56.5 acres, based on an old survey. Rowley argued that the land was actually 85.6 acres, as shown in a new survey done in 2009.

The Gifts filed a lawsuit seeking specific performance of their sale agreement with Marcelle. Their claim was initially dismissed by the High Court which ruled that the sale to the Gifts was contingent on final determination of the size of Rowley’s parcel.

In 2017, High Court judge Justice Nadia Kangaloo ruled in favour of Rowley. She found that Latour, the original landowner, had not been satisfied with the earlier 56.5-acre survey and had asked for a resurvey. The judge believed Rowley and Marcelle’s version of events and found that the Gifts knew all along that the sale of land was subject to that resurvey.

However, in 2023, the Court of Appeal disagreed and overturned the decision. Two of the three appeal judges – Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca and James Aboud – said Kangaloo had made a serious mistake by not properly considering letters written in 1980 and 1981 between lawyers for Rowley and Latour. Those letters seemed to support the Gifts’ claim that only 56.5 acres were involved.

In their ruling on August 5, the Privy Council has restored Kangaloo’s ruling, stating that the Court of Appeal went too far in rejecting her findings.

Lord Burrows, giving the judgment of the board, said that while the letters were important, the trial judge had clearly been aware of them during the trial. He said the appeal judges wrongly replaced the trial judge’s view of the facts with their own.

The Privy Council stressed that it was not enough for an appeal court to simply disagree with a judge's view. It must show that the judge was "plainly wrong." In this case, they said, the appeal court failed to meet that high standard.

“In the board’s view, the majority of the Court of Appeal was incorrect to have overturned Kangaloo J’s central findings of fact.

“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. The majority decided what was credible and reliable evidence and, in so doing, usurped the accepted role of the trial judge.”

Burrows also noted, “The majority substituted its own assessment of the evidence for that of the trial judge without a legitimate basis for so doing. That is impermissible.

“It was not for the Court of Appeal to reassess what was a rational assessment of that evidence by the trial judge.”

The ruling also clarified that the real question was what both sides meant in their 1998 agreement when they referred to the "remaining lands at Alma Estate." The board found that both Latour and the Gifts knew at the time that the sale excluded the land promised to Rowley, which had still been awaiting a proper survey.

“Even if Ms Latour had been mistaken (contrary to Kangaloo J’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 focussed on; and Kangaloo J made findings as to that understanding which the Court of Appeal was not entitled to reject.”

The Privy Council also held that dissenting judge, Justice of Appeal Gillian Lucky, was correct in her dissent from the majority’s findings.

The Privy Council has asked the parties to submit further information on how the final order should be worded.

Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, Margaret Rose and Robert Strang represented Rowley while Anand Ramlogan, SC, and Daniel Goldblatt represented the Gifts.