Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

Minister of Justice and Attorney General Senator Dorothy Lightbourne is taking steps to abolish an 18th-century English common-law principle that says the Government is not responsible for injuries or damage caused from lack of maintenance of roadways.

Senator Lightbourne is acting in response to a report in The Gleaner this month that 53-year-old farmer and mason, Vincent Green, of Allsides district near Warsop, Trelawny, is a victim of the old law.

Green suffered spinal injury when a section of a roadway in Trelawny collapsed in July 2001, pinning him for hours under a mixture of dirt and asphalt. He is unable to work and as a result, his children cannot attend school.

Attorneys-at-law Gordon Robinson and Winsome Marsh are representing Green in the suit he filed in the Supreme Court in 2005, but Government lawyers are relying on the principle of nonfeasance, which bars the Government from liability.

The principle states that if the road authorities fail to fix a roadway, the Government is not liable for injuries to a person or damage to motor vehicles.

Requested file

In a statement issued on the weekend, Attorney General Lightbourne said she had requested Green's file with a view to making an ex-gratia payment to him. She has given instructions to the Legal Reform Department to do the research necessary to review the principle of nonfeasance and advise on the required legislation to impose a duty on the authorities.

Lightbourne said she wished to convey her sympathies personally, and on behalf of the Government, to Green for his unfortunate circumstances.

She reiterated that very early in her tenure, the attorney general's chambers were directed that in matters where Jamaican citizens have been subject to injury as a result of actions or negligence on the part of the State or agents of the State, it was the Government of Jamaica's policy to ascertain its responsibility and to address the matter, even where the State had a technical defence. Lightbourne said she had also instructed that such files should be brought to her attention for decision.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com