MONROVIA – The Montgomery family says it would pursue to its logical conclusion a property dispute involving More Than Me. According to Erica Davies, spokesperson for the family, its unrelenting decision stems from media reports that a lawyer representing the More Than Me has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Liberia.
It can be recalled, on the 31st of July 2019, the grand jury at the Sixth Judicial Court in its June Term of Court handed down a unanimous verdict in favor of the Montgomery family,
Davies said they are aware of a reported ploy by More Than Me to incite community dwellers against the family – particularly parents – that the Montgomery family is blocking efforts for their children to benefit from free education by the organization.
Davies said the family is not deterred by such plan and will do all do pursue the case with the company to the end. For the past ten years,, we have been engaged in legal battle with the More Than Me which claimed that the building was given them by the Liberian Government.
Sometime between the 50s and 60s, being a faculty member of the University of Liberia, one Richard (deceased) allowed the university to use the building as administrative building due to the expansion of the university at that time, until the 1980 coup.
After the coup, the family claimed that the building was occupied by military personnel of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL).
Richard’s wife, Elizabeth, later wrote to Head of State Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, who led the coup and subsequently turned the building over to the Montgomery family after the intervention of former Minister of Foreign Affairs, T. Ernest Eastman (deceased).
Then the 1989 revolution launched by former President Charles Taylor caused the family to flee the country again, according to the record.
But, when they returned after the revolution, the building was then occupied by squatters, including armed persons of belligerent forces who had massively destroyed and looted the property.
In 2012, the document said, the Montgomery claimed that they received information from former Montserrado County Superintendent Madam Grace Kpan, along with the APM Terminals, that they were instructed by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to renovate the building for use by More Than Me Foundation (MTM).