The former chief justice has won almost €12,000 in compensation for damage sustained to items in his garage in Attard, which was flooded with rainwater from a public garden across the road.

A magistrate ruled that the contractor and the Attard local council were responsible for the damage sustained by former chief justice Vincent De Gaetano.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale heard how Dr De Gaetano sustained almost €12,000 in damage to his property in Ħal-Warda Street when rainwater flooded his property during a bad storm in September 2010.

The water was coming from a public garden across the road where the local council was carrying out an embellishment project through contractors Rite-Mix (Gatt Bros) Limited.

The court heard that the council issued a tender for the embellishment project in April of that year. It also included the construction of two underground reservoirs to store rainwater.

However, during excavation work in July, Punic tombs were discovered and the planning authority halted the work.

Work on the garden was abandoned for a number of months as the authorities objected to the continuation of work in view of the historic finding.

On September 28, a bad storm hit Malta and rainwater from the site flooded the garage of Dr De Gaetano’s property with some 10 inches of rainwater.

A neighbour, Nicholas Grima, testified that he had been living in the road for more than 25 years and had never seen so much rainwater flowing into the road from the garden. He told the court that a culvert with rainwater from other streets was not connected to the garden’s culvert and was diverting all the water in the direction of Ħal-Warda Street.

Dr De Gaetano’s architect, Anthony Fenech Vella, told the court that the water seeped into the garage through the rocks because of excavation work across the road.

The Attard council, represented by mayor Stefan Cordina, had been informed about the flooding problem but had told the De Gaetanos that nothing could be done as the council was barred from touching the site.

To make matters worse, another storm hit Malta on October 25 and the garage was flooded again.

Work on the garden continued the following August and, following a claim for compensation, the council passed a resolution assuming responsibility for the damage caused. However, it did not honour this commitment as the council’s insurance was refusing to assume responsibility.

Magistrate Depasquale ruled that the council and the contractor were solely responsible for the damage sustained by Dr De Gaetano. He said it was the damage to the culvert that caused the flooding and destruction, most of them of sentimental value.

As the magistrate lambasted the insurers for their failure to respect the council’s decision to assume responsibility for what had happened, resulting in additional costs to the council, which also had to face a court case, the magistrate ordered the council and the contractor to pay Dr De Gaetano €11,646 between them.