ADU DONYINAH VRS STANDARD CHARTERED BANK GHANA LIMITED & ANOR

BACKGROUND:

We find it appropriate, in commercial appeals such as the one currently before us, to first identify, by way of background, the causa, or cause of action, upon which the plaint at first instance was grounded. We do this in order to better focus our thoughts on the necessary elements which ought to be present before identifying the legitimate remedies suitably available to the plaintiff/appellant. The plaintiff/appellant here is aggrieved because, despite declaring the chattel in dispute to be his property, the trial court nonetheless denied him the remedy of damages he claimed resulted from its unlawful detention.

Riding the risk of overstating the obvious, the plaintiff/appellant’s action brought before the High Court was one grounded in detinue, - a form of tortious interference with goods. In other words, his action against the defendants was for acknowledgment and return of his chattel, as well as for damages to compensate him for loss and damage suffered as a result of their wrongful interference with it. The trial court declared the chattel as his, then ordered for its immediate return and delivery up to him but however denied him the consequential relief of damages. Therein lies the rub, and the grievance giving rise to the instant appeal, because the plaintiff/appellant strongly feels that the trial court ought to have poured the reliefs of damages into his victory cup from the fountain of justice as natural consequences flowing from the proven and declared findings of ownership and wrongful detention of his property.

Essentially, from the evidence adduced and accepted at trial, the court came to a finding of trespass and detention of the chattel, but somehow did not find the detention wrongful in law per se, to give rise to liability in damages against the 1st defendant. Is it at all possible for a court of law to come to such an opposing set of findings in conclusion to an action grounded in the tort of wrongful detention of goods, we may ask.

In giving more detail to this background of the case, the trial court did not concern itself at all with whether the plaintiff had suffered any prejudice, loss, or damage flowing from the interference with his chattel. Neither did it interrogate any circumstantial questions of remoteness or causation surrounding the award of damages; rather, the trial court denied the plaintiff damages simply because it relied on some other considerations in coming to its finding that the 1st de