Recent Caribbean Court Cases

Abstract

This installment covers the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis and the United States Virgin Islands, with a British Virgin Islands stamp-duty note, short entries for Anguilla, the Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago, and one Barbados matter. Compulsory acquisition is the smaller part of it; the decisions treated at length go to the interests being valued. The Cayman Grand Court, in Strata Plan No. 608, deemed never-built strata blocks destroyed on unchallenged valuation evidence of no material diminution in value, and in R (Caribbean Utilities Co Ltd) v Ombudsman held paid-for studies to be property and read down a disclosure provision that offered no compensation. The Privy Council, in Cayman Shores [2025] UKPC 27, held mislabelled recreational easements validly registered from inception. Jamaica's Supreme Court, in Cunningham v Hall, canceled a registered title for fraud against more than twelve years' possession. In Saint Kitts and Nevis a statutory social-security debt was declared to rank ahead of a registered mortgage, a holding now under appeal to the Privy Council on conditional leave. The Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands, in Frongillo, restored 149 days of a statutory redemption period cut by a backdated confirmation. Several items, among them the Jamaican Hyde award and the Barbados encroachment award, rest on press reports or commentary and are so marked. The other member states of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States are left for a future installment.