GH - ABABIO v. TUTU

JUDGMENT OF ADUMUA-BOSSMAN J.S.C.

Adumua-Bossman, J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. This appeal is against a judgment dated the 20th January, 1961, of the High Court, Kumasi constituted by Apaloo, J., whereby he disallowed the plaintiff-appellant's claim for damages for trespass in an area of land alleged to be Ahuren stool land, and gave judgment in favour of the defendant —respondent.

The parties are adjoining landowners, and the action raised for determination, firstly, the issue as to which of two conflicting boundary lines shown by each of them respectively (as indicated in plan prepared for the trial of the action and marked exhibit A) and claimed to be the common boundary demarcated sometime in 1901 by a body of customary arbitrators between their respective contiguous stool lands, is the true and correct boundary which the said arbitrators decided on, and established or settled between them. The action also raised the consequential issue as to the ownership of the intermediate area of land between the said two boundary lines claimed respectively by the parties.

The learned trial judge after hearing all the evidence and sifting the same carefully, proceeded to express reliance on certain crucial portions thereof put forward on behalf of the defendant-respondent, and after further expressing some cogent and weighty reasons, concluded by accepting the boundary claimed by the defendant-respondent in preference to that claimed by the plaintiff-appellant. In respect of that [p.491] decision, after a careful study of the evidence adduced on behalf of each party, we have formed the opinion that the learned judge's preference for the boundary claimed by the defendant-respondent is amply justified by the evidence on record, and by the learned judge's impressive evaluation of the whole evidence in the case and his convincing reasoning and deductions there from.

In this appeal, effort has been made by learned counsel for the plaintiff-appellant to impugn the learned trial judge's decision on the ground that it is against the weight of the evidence. Counsel's arguments in this connection, however, have been quite unconvincing, and, as already indicated, we find the learned judge's decision amply warranted.

Counsel however urged and pressed another ground of challenge against the judgment and insisted that the learned judge erred in deciding the case in favour of the defendant-respondent, alleging that there was no defendant before the trial cou

JUDGMENT OF ADUMUA-BOSSMAN J.S.C.

ABABIO v. TUTU

Areas of Law

JUDGMENT