Two new judgments dropped last week, both from Trinidad & Tobago.
In Hart v Chin [2025] UKPC 51, the Board found that a commission of public inquiry had failed to comply with natural justice and procedural fairness when it published findings adverse findings and criticism against the respondent without giving him notice and an opportunity to respond. The judgment doesn’t break any new ground but couples nicely with last year’s Pyaneandee v Lam Shang Leen judgment from Mauritius about another public inquiry that prompted judicial review proceedings based on adverse findings made about an aggrieved individual.
Gordon Winter Company Ltd v NH International (Caribbean) Ltd [2025] UKPC 52 is a short and sweet decision rendered only three weeks after the matter was heard by a three-member panel. The Board dismissed the appeal, agreeing that the Court of Appeal was entitled to award damages to the respondent based on contractual quantum meruit even though the respondent had originally pleaded a case based on an absence of a contract and on unjust enrichment quantum meruit. In the Board’s view, the appellant’s submissions were “arid formalism” and it had not been unfair for the case to evolve in that way given that the appellant had sufficient notice of the position when the parties were in front of the Court of Appeal.
Also last week, the Privy Council heard two matters, with two other matters coming on for hearing this week:
- On 28 October, the Board heard Singh v Persad, a medical negligence case from Trinidad & Tobago. In the courts below, the claim was originally dismissed against the doctor but allowed against the hospital, with the hospital’s liability upheld on appeal and the appellate court also finding liability against the doctor. The doctor appealed to the Privy Council, and the hospital tagged along as an intervenor. Like many cases that come before the Privy Council, the Court of Appeal’s treatment of factual findings is the major issue.
- The same day, five other justices formed a panel to hear Watson v The King from The Bahamas, a criminal case about whether the trial judge gave faulty jury directions resulting in the jury convicting the appellant of damage and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life but acquitting him of armed robbery.
- On 3 November, the Board will hear McFarlane v General Legal Council from Jamaica, an attorney disciplinary case. The attorney had returned deposit funds to one co-purchaser when a land purchase fell through. The other co-purchaser filed a complaint with the governing body that the attorney had not safeguarded and had misplaced her client’s funds. The attorney was found guilty of negligence by the disciplinary committee and ordered to pay restitution to the complainant and costs of the disciplinary proceedings. Those findings were upheld on appeal.
- On 5 November, a Bahamas case, Anheuser-Busch International Inc & Anor v Commonwealth Brewery Ltd will give the Board an opportunity to opine on reasonable notice periods for terminating an oral contract. Anheuser-Busch had agreed for Commonwealth to distribute its products in The Bahamas for over 40 years, but had never reduced the agreement to writing. When A-B gave 3.5 months’ notice to terminate the arrangement, and stopped supplying product a month later, litigation ensued. The trial judge found that a reasonable termination notice period would have been 15 months, but the Court of Appeal found that A-B gave reasonable notice.
Finally, we are not expecting any new judgments this week.