Government has been ordered by the Supreme Court to pay $40 million in damages to a 20-year-old man who was shot in the back by a policeman.
The award is one of the highest ever in a personal injury suit against the state.
Lloyd Clarke, an apprentice mason of Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, is now crippled from the waist down and has to get constant nursing care.
Clarke was walking on Barclay Street, Savanna-la-Mar, on July 24, 2006, when he was shot in the back and right elbow by one or other of three policemen who were named as defendants.
Severed spinal cord
Clarke suffered a completely severed spinal cord which caused complete paralysis from the waist down. He was treated at the Cornwall Regional Hospital between July 24 and August 2, 2006, and thereafter spent 42 days at the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre.
Clarke, who was represented by attorney-at-law Don O. Foote, sued Corporal E. F. Quest, Constable R. Barrett and District Constable M. Bernard and the attorney general to recover damages.
The medical evidence was that Clarke would not be able to work again as a mason and would be totally dependent on someone to help with his personal hygiene.
Acting Supreme Court Judge Sarah Thompson-James heard evidence in the matter and ruled that the defendants were liable to pay damages.
Mr Justice Roy Anderson assessed damages last week and ordered the Government to pay general damages of $26 million with interest for pain and suffering and loss of amenities. Clarke was awarded US$7,500 (J$600,000) for a motorised wheelchair. He was also awarded $3.3 million for loss of future earnings and $7.8 million for future nursing and personal care.
Legal costs have been set at $76,000.
The judge said that awards for personal injuries of the severity of those which Clarke suffered should be geared towards the provision of as comfortable a life as possible because Clarke had lost almost everything.
barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com
The following are two other personal injury rulings against the government, since 2000, in cases resulting from police shootings.
Clifton Bernard was shot at a phone booth by a policeman in 1990. He sued the state and, in the Supreme Court, Justice Zaila McCalla handed down judgment in favour of Bernard and awarded $2.5 million with costs and interest in damages against the government for assault, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment in 2001.
The Privy Council upheld the Supreme Court ruling.
The Supreme Court in December 2006 ordered the Government to pay $13.5 million in damages to a woman who was shot in the head by a member of a police party six years earlier, leaving her an epileptic for life.
Deborah Douglas, 29, former accounts clerk, of Ensom Acres, St Catherine, had damages assessed in her favour.
The attorney general, who was the respondent, accepted liability after the negligence suit was filed.
Acting Supreme Court Judge Marva McDonald-Bishop assessed damages and made the award.
Douglas was shot and seriously injured in a taxi in the Caymanas area, of St Catherine, on March 27, 2000. It was reported that the police were chasing four gunmen and accidentally fired shots, one of which hit Douglas