Court of Appeal reinstates JC school uniform lawsuit

The Court of Appeal has reinstated a lawsuit filed by principal of Jamaica College Wayne Robinson against former president of the school’s Old Boys Association, Major Basil Jarrett, a year after it was thrown out by a judge of the Supreme Court.

Robinson’s lawsuit surrounds the sale of school uniforms at the all-boys institution located in St Andrew. Robinson has raised questions about how proceeds from the sale of the uniforms were used under Jarrett's leadership of the association.

Jarrett had filed an application to have the lawsuit dismissed, claiming that he was the wrong defendant; that Robinson did not have the locus standi to bring the claim; and that no agency was established between himself and the JC principal.

Supreme Court judge Opal Smith, in a decision handed down in March last year, dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Robinson had no locus standi or the right to bring an action to court, as Jarrett contended.

But in a unanimous decision on Thursday, a panel of three Court of Appeal judges found that the issue of whether Robinson has standing to bring the lawsuit in his personal capacity should go to the Supreme Court for trial.

The judges also ordered that the lawsuit should proceed to a hearing before a judge of the Supreme Court “other than Justice Smith”.

Jarrett, in his reaction to the ruling by the Court of Appeal, said he believes the court will ultimately reveal the true nature of what he claims is a fabricated lawsuit against him as punishment for the principled positions he took while serving as president of JC’s Old Boys Association.

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