• Both priest and Assumption Sisters of Nairobi claimed St Mary's Mission Hospitals in Nairobi and Nakuru and property in Sagana.
• Appeal Court ruled hospitals be transferred to St Mary's Mission Hospital Nairobi, a limited Liability company owned by the church.
Image: COURTESY
After a 10-year-long battle, a Catholic priest and group of nuns have lost control of St Mary's Mission Hospitals in Nairobi and Nakuru.
Both Dr William Charles Fryda, an American Maryknoll priest, and the Assumption Sisters of Nairobi (ASN) were denied the right to ownership.
They had both claimed St Mary’s Mission Hospital Langata, St Mary’s Mission Hospital Elementaita and property in Sagana to construct a hospital to serve the Mt Kenya region.
A three-judge Appeal's bench ordered the hospitals in Langata and Elementaita be transferred to St Mary’s Mission Hospital Nairobi, a limited liability company owned by the church.
Justices Milton Makhandia, Kathurima M’Inoti and Agnes Murgor, in a judgment dated September 25, said it would be wrong to hold that Dr Fryda solely purchased the property using his personal funds, although he contributed to the project.
However, they said the evidence points to the fact that Dr Fryda was an equal in the partnership between ASN and Maryknoll.
The judges also held that Regina Pacis University College, a constituent college of Catholic University, has no claim over the land for the two hospitals and in Nyeri.
Their orders arose out of an appeal filed by Dr Fryda.
He challenged a High Court decision that handed the ownership and management of the hospitals to the sisters.
The initial High Court matter was also filed on September 8 this year by Dr Fryda, a medical doctor and a US citizen. He lost the case.
He is a priest connected with the Order of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers based in New York.
The suit was filed against ASN and St Mary's Mission Hospital Nairobi. In the suit, Dr Fryda claimed that in 1998 he sought land in Nairobi specifically to put up a hospital for the poor.
He ended up purchasing St Mary’s Langata for Sh38 million.
However, he wanted a body corporate registered in whose name these properties were to be transferred and registered.
Dr Fryda, therefore, paid for the incorporation and registration of St Mary's Mission Hospital Nairobi as a limited liability company.
However, since the company was yet to be registered when he purchased the property, he agreed with ASN that the title be registered in their name - with the understanding that ASN would later transfer the property to a body corporate that he was to register.
The priest began development of the property with his own money and the money he had solicited from friends and donors.
In total, he spent about Sh553 million on that project and put up St Mary's Mission Hospital Rift Valley for about Sh365 million.
Dr Fryda argued that he also purchased the property in Sagana for Sh4.8 million. While waiting for ASN to transfer these parcels as they had previously agreed, he ran the hospitals.
After a change of leadership in the ASN in 2009, the new leadership claimed they owned all the parcels and developments on them at Langata, Elemeintaita and Sagana.
He claimed that they also started to interfere with the running of the hospitals by imposing some employees and allocating them duties without consulting him or the management that had been put in place.
Dr Fryda further pleaded that the directors of St Mary’s Mission Hospital, a company that was incorporated in 1999, had never been determined by the subscribers, and no guarantors were appointed, although the company was limited by guarantee.
He said he will suffer losses, in view of what he had invested in the development of the hospitals, if the affairs of the hospitals were not resolved.
As far as he was concerned, the properties belonged to him or to any person he designated.
ASN said setting up the hospitals resulted from a collaborative meeting between ASN and Maryknoll, and it was agreed ASN would be the legal owner of the hospitals and responsible for their management.
It was on this basis that the properties were registered in the name of ASN, they said.
They denied that Dr Fryda alone paid for the properties.
ASN said the funds to purchase the properties were provided by donors through correspondence initiated by ASN.
(Edited by V. Graham)