Lead Stories

Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

Allied Protection Ltd is to pay more than $15 million, plus interest, to a man who has been left mentally retarded after he was struck from behind by a motor car belonging to the security company.

Acting Supreme Court judge Frank Williams made the award in favour of 49-year Ucal Simpson of Kingston. He was awarded $12 million in general damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenities.

Simpson, who was a con-struction worker at the time he was injured in March 2005, was also awarded $911,680 for loss of future earnings, $780,000 for future help and $1.4 million as special damages.

Attorney-at-law Christine Hudson, who represented Simpson, had asked the court to make an award of $15 million for general damages.

Allied Protection Ltd had denied liability at the trial in the Supreme Court. After the judge ruled in Simpson's favour, its lawyers John Graham and Sharon Usim asked the court to award Simpson between $5 million and $7 million in general damages.

Simpson, who sustained serious head injuries and now has a severe impairment of memory function and speech, was not able to give an account as to how the accident occurred.

Case facts

Evidence was given by Nicar Baker, who said he was in a house at Mannings Hill Road, St Andrew, looking through a window when he saw Simpson walking along the roadway near an embankment on Mannings Hill Road. He said he saw a car hit Simpson from behind while he was walking. The accident occurred between 4 p.m. and 5.30 p.m.

The motor car, at the time of the accident, was being driven by Alva Watson, then a security officer employed to the company. Watson was also named as a defendant in the suit.

The defendants contended that Watson was lawfully driving along Mannings Hill Road when Simpson, who was walking on the road while under the influence of alcohol, suddenly stepped out into the motor car's path.

In handing down his ruling, the judge said he found Baker to be a witness of truth and gave his evidence in a forthright manner. The judge said that after hearing Watson's testimony, the court was convinced that he truly could not say say how the accident occurred.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com