By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Court of Appeal judges yesterday slammed the Supreme Court’s handling of a dispute related to an attorney accused of stealing client funds as “a colossal waste of judicial resources”.

Both justice Milton Evans, the Court of Appeal president, and fellow justice Stella Crane-Scott, asserted that based on the record of proceedings before them Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson had failed to “take control of the proceedings” in a case involving allegations that Sonia Timothy-Serrette had failed to repay a $70,000 loan obtained from her former parents-in-law to refund monies taken from her clients.

Justice Crane-Scott, in writing a unanimous verdict in favour of Ms Timothy-Serrette, and which overturned the Supreme Court verdict (see other article on Page 1B), said it would not have taken almost eight-and-a-half years from the time the claim was filed in April 2014 to produce an initial ruling if the matter had been properly managed by the judge. 

The Supreme Court decision was eventually rendered in September 2022, but the Court of Appeal hinted strongly that it may have been disposed of much sooner if Justice Grant-Thompson had heard Ms Timothy-Serrette’s application to strike her parents-in-law’s claim out. This was never heard, and the judge ultimately proceeded to a full trial on the claim’s merits.

“It need hardly be said that a Judge’s duty to ‘actively manage cases’ involves much more than merely giving directions and fixing timelines to ready a matter for substantive trial,” justice Crane-Scott wrote.

“As we have demonstrated, if the learned judge had taken the necessary steps to ensure that the appellant’s strike-out application was either struck-out for want of prosecution, or alternatively, was heard and disposed of as a preliminary issue, the [parents-in-law] action would in all likelihood have been struck-out years ago.

“As things turned out, the pending strike-out summons was repeatedly adjourned by the judge between 2016 and 2018 and was never heard. Instead, the action was then scheduled for substantive trial before the judge in 2018 and - after numerous adjournments - only finally concluded in September 2022 when the learned judge handed down her written decision,” she added.

“Simply put, rules of court exist for a reason. Regrettably, what transpired in the court below can only be described as a colossal waste of judicial time.” She was backed by justice Evans in his capacity of Court of Appeal president, who wrote: “It is unfortunate that an action which was commenced on April 7, 2014, would not be the subject of a written judgment until September 30, 2022.”

He added that the then-Supreme Court Rules’ case management Order was “put in place to avoid the very same results which have occurred in this particular case. The learned judge in her judgment sought to rely on the fact that counsel appearing for both parties before her were attorneys who carried out a very active criminal practice.

“However, the code of professional conduct for attorneys is clear that attorneys ought not to commit themselves to a workload which affects their ability to give proper attention to assisting their clients,” justice Evans wrote. “It is also noted that in the present case the learned judge herself was in charge of a robust criminal calendar and was seeking to fit the hearing dates for this civil trial into that schedule.

“This is clearly not an ideal situation and ought to be avoided. The judge may have thought that she was being helpful but the results should be a cautionary lesson. Whereas it may be feasible to fit a short civil application into a criminal schedule, the attempt to conduct a full civil trial is not in my view a prudent course of action.”

Justice Evans concluded: “We in this court have had to rely on the judge’s hand written notes as opposed to full and proper transcripts and, in the final stages, some written notes were not available. It is these types of situations which could give rise to successful challenges to judgments where delays have been excessive.

“I make these observations not to interfere with the administrative operation of the Supreme Court nor to criticise the learned judge, but rather to highlight concerns which result when we have to resolve cases on appeal where the case has not been properly managed below.

“The goal of the judiciary is to do justice between the parties. When attorneys do not comply with rules of the court and the court does not hold them accountable, it is usually the litigant who suffers.”