Supreme Court orders JPS to pay farmer $65 million for trespassing

The Supreme Court has awarded a landowner in Rhymesbury, Clarendon, the sum of $65 million against the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) for trespassing, but The Gleaner understands that the light and power company has signalled that it will be challenging that award at the Court of Appeal.

JPS trespassed on the land by unlawfully erecting and maintaining its overhead power lines and poles across its perimeter, which prevented Rosemarie Samuels, the landowner, from using and benefitting from an area of the property for rearing chickens in modernised chicken houses.

“The Court accepts that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Miss Samuels would have been able to generate greater income from her operations, had she been able to construct the two additional chicken houses on the said land. She was deprived of the use and benefit of a portion of the said land and suffered loss of income as a consequence,” the judgment read in part.

The ruling came after a 12-year legal battle between Samuels and the JPS.

The court said that the $65 million is to be paid with interest at the rate of three per cent per annum from April 9, 2008 to the date of the judgment.

When contacted for a comment, the JPS said the matter was being reviewed by its legal team.

The company noted, however, that “JPS is permitted by law to negotiate easements with landowners. This particular easement was negotiated in 1995 and had peculiar issues. It doesn’t affect JPS’s policies, which are compliant with Jamaica's laws”.

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