Pascal v Blaise et Al

• Jurisdiction: St Lucia
• Judge: Manning, J.
• Judgment Date: 17 July 1959
• Neutral Citation: LC 1959 HC 9
• Court: High Court (Saint Lucia)
• Date: 17 July 1959
• Docket Number: No. 34 of 1959

Supreme Court of the Windward and Leeward Islands. (Civil Jurisdiction)

Manning, J.

No. 34 of 1959

Pascal

and

Blaise et al

Appearances:

V. Floissac for plaintiff

K. Foster for defendant No. 1

Real property - Ownership — Prescription

Facts: The plaintiff sought a declaration of ownership and possession of the property in question. The defendant alleged that he was the owner of the property. The issue was whether the defendant had acquired the land by prescription.

Held: The defendant did not succeed in showing that she owned the land by prescription. Judgment given for the plaintiff.

Manning, J.

1 The plaintiff in his declaration alleges that he is the owner of three carrÉs of land in the Grand Cul-de-Sac Valley in St. Lucia, that the defendants are in possession of this laud and claim to be the owners thereof and refuse to recognize his title. He asks for a declaration of ownership and possession and profits.

2 The defendants Durancy St. Jules and Camie Edwardville have not defended the action. The defendant Anesta Blaise, in her defence, pleaded that she had some right to part ownership in the land. This part of the defence has been abandoned, and she relies on the plea that she has been in lawful possession of a portion of the land for over 30 years.

3 As the hearing progressed, it was apparent that there was no denial of the plaintiff's ownership of the land, based as it was on authentic and uncontroverted documentary evidence. The only issue therefore was prescription.

4 Anesta Blaise's evidence on this was confused and uncertain and I do not believe her statements on many points. She lives at Bexon, some distance from the land, and her only connection with it was that she made a garden on it, that is, she cultivated a portion of it. She was apparently acting in accordance with a usual practice of persons in St. Lucia, who rely on their relationship with land-owning proprietors to be permitted without interference to cultivate land, which does not belong to them. Anesta was unable to describe the portion, which she cultivates; all she could say was that she claimed one carrÉ; where her portion began or where it ended she was unable to say. But it is on the question of when she began to cultivate a part of the land that I distrust her evidence. There is no corroboration of her statement that she began to cultivate a portion thirty years before the plaintiff's title arose in February this...