Karen loses malpractice case in death of husband; ordered to pay costs

File: Karen Nunez-Tesheira

Justice Vashiest Kokaram on Wednesday dismissed a multi-million-dollar negligence lawsuit brought by former finance minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira against the Gulf View Medical Centre and two doctors.

She was claiming negligence in the death of her husband, Russell Tesheira, who was a patient at the centre when he died on April 13, 2004 following surgery by urologist Dr Lester Goetz and anaesthesiologist Dr Crisen Jendra Roopchand.

The judge dismissed the claim and also ordered Nunez-Tesheira ordered to pay the legal costs of one of the doctors. 

He imposed the penalty because Nunez-Tesheira twice failed to meet court deadlines for the filing and serving of witness statements and a supplemental list of documents.

Nunez-Tesheira told the Express newspaper she was not the one at fault for the delays. The paper said she blamed her legal team's instructing attorney Nyree Alfonso. 

Nunez-Tesheira said she intends to take the matter to the Disciplinary Committee of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago. She said Alfonso could have gone to the next side and asked for an extension before the time elapsed or apply for an extension from the court if the other side would not give it. 

Alfonso told the paper Nunez-Tesheira experienced difficulty in managing to keep her witnesses in the case. “Her key witness jumped out of the case,” Alfonso said. “Even after she was begged to stay in the case she refused."

Alfonso acknowledged that she should have filed an application for an extension of time but said at the time she didn’t have a witness. "I didn’t know when I would get a witness and I didn’t know when I got that witness whether they would agree with the witness on which my case was founded.”

Alfonso said one of the witnesses decided, the day before the deadline, not to continue in the matter. 

In making the ruling the judge stated, "Having regard to the legal personalities involved in the conduct and carriage of her case, and the several unfortunate missteps along the way, I can only surmise that there must be forces larger than us all preventing her from investigating the death of her husband. He is perhaps to be remembered as he lived and not as he died.”