AGBENYEGA (AN INFANT) v. GHANA NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION
October 30, 1968
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- ANTERKYI J
Areas of Law
- Tort Law
- Evidence Law
- Civil Procedure
- Contract Law
October 30, 1968
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
A High Court, per Anterkyi J., held the operators of the ferry launch Auntie Dedei liable in negligence for injuries suffered by 13-year-old Awuku Agbenyega while disembarking at Sogakope after crossing from Sokpe. After the vessel berthed and the ramp was lowered, the launch moved; Agbenyega fell at the ramp’s edge and his right foot was trapped beneath, causing severe lacerations. Teacher Nyafli signaled the steersmen to lift the ramp and conveyed the boy to Adidome Evangelical Presbyterian Church Hospital, where Dr. Richard Charles Braun performed skin grafts and a calf-to-heel flap, leaving a 10% permanent disability. Rejecting the defence’s fish-scramble narrative, the court found inadequate safety measures—no mooring lines or side railings—and held an implied contract of carriage imposed a duty of care extending through disembarkation. Judgment was entered for N¢6,000 damages plus costs.
JUDGMENT OF ANTERKYI J.
This is an action against the defendants, brought by the plaintiff, a school boy aged thirteen, suing by his next-friend Kwabla Adamali, for damages for personal injuries caused by the negligence of the defendants.
The story of the infant plaintiff, as told by him, is that on 7 November 1963 he was returning from Sokpe to Sogakope on the launch Auntie Dedei when the afternoon session of the school at Sokpe was over. The launch had ferried him and many other passengers including school children across the Volta from the Sokpe bank to the Sogakope bank where it had stopped. About 50 of the passengers in front of him had come out to safety, and when he was coming out, the launch suddenly moved causing him to fall into the water at his nearside of the ramp which served as a bridge between the deck of the launch and the landing stage, the concrete floor for landing, and causing his right foot to be trapped under the side of the front part of the ramp to his hurt: the skin of the whole of his right foot was torn off as a result. He remained with his right foot thus trapped under the ramp, until one Nyafli came to his rescue and took him to the hospital at Adidome where he received treatment given him by one Dr. Braun. And in his own words:
"I sustained an injury on my foot—the whole skin of my right foot was peeled off and blood flowed—I felt pains severely. The teacher put me on a truck to Adidome Hospital— I had treatment at the hospital—I was admitted for about three months. I went back to the hospital the second time and was there for about four and a half months. I received treatment again . . . My mother cared for me during the periods I was admitted to the hospital—she stayed in the hospital during each of the two periods. On the second occasion I was in the hospital, my right foot was joined to my left leg and there was grafting of the skin. I suffered severe pains for about five weeks. Owing to this injury and the treatment, my class mates are now a year or a class ahead of me in the school. My foot is not completely healed. The injuries re-occur occasionally and I feel pains. I would desire to have a secondary school education if I should complete the elementary school education if the injuries [p.971] permit my doing so. I am claiming £G2,500 damages for the injuries I have suffered."
During cross-examination he admitted as true how the launch was operated with regard to the do's and don’ts of passengers thereon up to the