Judge forced to preach on Christian values to resolve St Mary's Sh960 m property tussle

Rev.Dr Bill Charles Fryda (center) celebrates with other staff after they managed to stop the Nuns from taking over theSt. Mary's Hospital on January 5,2018. [Photo:Kipsang Joseph/Standard]

When the battle for schools and hospitals ran by the Catholic Church broke out, few would have expected it to get murky.

So nasty was the case between a priest and nuns over the ownership of St Mary’s hospitals and other property that Justice Munyao Sila saw it fit to preach to the parties as he delivered the ruling.

In his September 28, 2017 judgement, Justice Sila expressed disappointment at the lack of Christian values in the case involving William Charles Fryda, the St Mary’s hospitals’ founding priest who had sued the Assumption Sisters of Nairobi.

“Given the relationship of the parties, and their standing in the order of the Catholic Church, I would have thought that this is the perfect case for an out-of-court settlement,” Justice Sila said.

Munyao was shocked that the parties could not agree to an out-of-court settlement despite attempts to convince them to pursue that path.

“I ask the parties to sit back, reflect on all that they have gone through, assess what they have achieved together, forget the bitter fights in and outside court, embrace each other, and push forward with one mission, that of developing the best healthcare for the poor in the Kenyan society,” the judge said.

Registered as a liability company

He added: “They need to have a second look at the Christian principles that they believe in and find space for each other.

“Egos need to be deflated. No one should feel that they have lost for backing down to accommodate the other. There is of course no place for pride.”

Before this judgement, the fight over St Mary’s hospitals -- in Nakuru and Nairobi -- had taken a bad turn never expected in Christian circles.

All this was at the expense of patients who were in dire need of care, leading to some of them being thrown out of the facilities.

Dr Fryda submitted that he acquired the two facilities “for purposes of catering for the poor” at Sh38 million in 1998.

He said he wanted an institution registered in whose name the properties will be transferred and hence St Mary’s Mission Hospital was registered as a liability company.

But since the company was yet to be registered by the time he was purchasing the property, he agreed that Assumption of Sisters Nairobi would have the land in their name and would later transfer it back to him.

Fryda commenced development on the parcels of land with his own money, and funding from friends. He spend about Sh553 million to develop the parcels of land in Langata.

Frdya further submitted that he later acquired the Elementaita land and put up another hospital at a cost of about Sh365 million.

He revealed that he acquired the property in Sagana at a cost of Sh4.8 million.

Vows of chastity

But a change in leadership at the Assumption Sisters in August 2009 sparked the ownership row of the property forcing him to seek justice in court.

Fryda, in his defense, added that being a Mary Knoll priest, he had not taken vows of poverty but vows of chastity and obedience to religious matters, which explained his relentless fight over the property.

In their defence, the Assumption Sisters said all the four parcels of land were in their name and they were not holding them in trust of Fryda as he had earlier claimed.

Just after Justice Sila ordered Fryda to surrender the titles of the property to the Assumption Sisters of Nairobi in September, the nuns raided the hospitals and engineered a violent takeover of the management.

In January, Fryda’s bid to be reinstated as the hospital’s director was opposed by the nuns.

Later in May 16, he was charged with forgery after it appeared that he issued false documents altering the ownership of the hospital.

He was later released on a bond of Sh500, 000 or a cash bail of Sh300, 000 after pleading not guilty.