Attorney Says G.O.B. is Acting in Bad Faith in B.D.F. Settlement

According to Audrey Matura, who represents the wives of two of the deceased airmen, the widows chose not to agree on a settlement with the Government of Belize which would have amounted to one hundred thousand dollars each.  Instead, they opted to pursue a civil claim at the High Court.

 

Audrey Matura, Attorney-at-law

“They wanted me to express how disappointed they are, how they feel that the government has been acting in really bad faith and on that point, I want people to know that we have written several letters to the government before trying to reach settlement.  Thereafter, complaining why it is difficult for us to reach settlement, then imploring them to give an advance, an interim payment which the law allows.  And when all of that have fallen on deaf ears, we have an application that we made for urgent interim payment, but there was no judge.  The judge that was hearing the matter has left the jurisdiction, so we have to wait for a new judge.  So all these factors, some beyond our control have created the undue delay and four years later, the family, these two families have still not had the closure in that area of this matter. The truth is, my clients opted not to settle for a hundred thousand dollars because a hundred thousand dollars would not get them through.  How could Mrs. Mendez have a hundred thousand dollars to raise her three children up to primary school, much less high school.  That’s nothing in the scheme of things.  Had her husband been alive, she would have been getting more than that in terms of money and more so in terms of his actual support there. They opted for full compensation because in their hearts of hearts, they know, one, [that] the life of their loved one is worth more than that.  They know, two, there is absolutely no way those two gentlemen were in any way responsible for that accident.  Three, taking legal advice under the law of negligence, they knew, based on advice given to them, that there is a formula that looks at how young they were, what would have been their prospects of promotion and increased salary, how many years they would have lived to be in the military and even looking at possible retirement and we look at possible retirement based on what the BDF allows in law.”