In April of 2021, we told you about another multimillion-dollar land compensation Supreme Court judgement against the government of Belize. That's when the then Acting Chief Justice Michelle Arana ruled that the government owed a real estate company called Ivorr Realty 5.6 million dollars for a large piece of land on Turneffe. The suit was brought by Olivia Villanueva, daughter in law of LOVE FM's Chief, Rene Villanueva. It made news because the judgement award was exponentially greater than the price that Ivorr paid for the land back in February of 2008 when it acquired 102.5 acres of land along the east coast of the Turneffe Island Range for the almost charitable sum of $27,300 dollars - a bottom dollar bargain price, considering also that the land has almost three thousand feet of sea frontage.
Well, 5.6 million is a whooooole lot and the Ministry of Natural Resources challenged it at the court of appeals. They retained private counsel to do so and the judgement was handed down yesterday when the 5.6 million dollar award was set aside. The higher court found that the judge made critical errors. We discussed the lead private attorney for government Andrew Marshalleck via Zoom today:
Andrew Marshalleck, Attorney, Ministry of Natural Resources
"In reviewing the papers and the file, it became clear to us that there were a number of significant errors that were made that led to that very generous award of 5.6 million dollars. Not the least of which the judge in her decision regretted that Mr. Talbert Brackett who offered the opinion evidence as to the value of the land was not cross-examined. When in fact he was cross-examined for over an hour and the whole proceedings was really his cross examinations. So, it seems a fundamental misstep that apparently was forgotten or somehow missed that Mr. Brackett was substantially cross examine and none of that material that came out before the court was taken into account in assessing the award."
"That was the first one. The second error right on the face of it without even looking at anything too deeply is that the rules require that you get permission in order to tender expert evidence and no permission was sought for Mr. Brackett's evidence. The court of appeal in its decision while it acknowledge that it is a problem, left it for another time having already set aside the award on the basis of the mistake surrounding the cross examination."
"They have remitted the matter back down to the supreme court to proceed on a new assessment. As to the mistake with the cross examination, it seems very basic and the court didn't draw or make any finding as to the reasons, but it did juxtapose the error against the fact that the trial judge took some 15 months before she delivered her decision. So, it would seem that during that period of time they just forgot it had happened, forgot to take it into account."
The matter has been sent back to the High Court for a new hearing to determine damages.
