Beriston Bryan

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Complaint by Hortense Sharpe-Sanderson against attorney Berriston Bryan for delay and negligence in a conveyancing transaction. The transaction, which should have completed within 120 days, took about 10 months, causing additional mortgage interest. The attorney had delegated the matter to his secretary without adequate supervision and failed to stamp the Agreement for Sale timely. He also failed to honour a written undertaking to pay J$140,000. The Disciplinary Committee found him guilty of professional misconduct under Canons iv(r), iv(s) and vi(d). Allegations under Canon 1(b) and Canons vii(a)/(b) (accounting) were not proven to the criminal standard. No express finding of dishonesty was made. He was ordered to pay restitution of J$140,000 plus 12% interest, two fines of J$50,000 each, and costs of J$150,000.

Duties found breached:

• No taking unfair advantage
• No conflict between current clients
• Competence

Aggravating factors:

• Inordinate delay: took approximately 10 months to complete a transaction set for completion in 120 days
• Delegated conduct of the sale to his secretary without adequate supervision
• Failed to stamp Agreement for Sale in a timely manner despite holding the deposit from April 2003
• Failure to honour his written undertaking to pay J$140,000
• Caused the Complainant and her husband to incur additional mortgage interest of J$170,849.50

Mitigating factors:

• Respondent accepted some responsibility for the delay and offered to reimburse losses to maintain good client relations

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_fine_amount=100000"]