JUDGMENT OF EDUSEI J.
In this action the plaintiff is claiming from the defendants jointly and severally £G5,000 or N¢10,000 damages for injuries sustained in a motor accident due to the negligence of the first defendant who was the driver and servant of the second defendants.
The facts as revealed by the evidence are as follows: The first defendant was driving his timber truck registration No. WR 4019 [p.300] on 5 September 1961 on the Oda-Abenase road. The plaintiff was walking along the same road to his farm when the first defendant pulled up by his side. The first defendant alighted from his truck and had a chat with the plaintiff for some few minutes. According to the first defendant he then went into his timber truck and drove off not knowing that the plaintiff had gone on to the truck. The plaintiff on the other hand stated that the first defendant, after their short conversation, offered him a lift on the timber truck which was going in the direction of his farm. On the evidence before me, I prefer to accept the story of the plaintiff that he was offered a lift by the first defendant, and reject as untrue and highly improbable the version of the first defendant that the plaintiff got on to the timber truck without his (the first defendant's) knowledge and consent. When it was about a quarter of a mile to the junction, where the plaintiff would get down and walk to his farm, the accident occurred: the plaintiff fell from the timber truck and the back nearside tyre ran over his left leg; he became unconscious. The driver's mate shouted to the first defendant that the plaintiff had fallen down and so he stopped the vehicle and picked up the plaintiff and took him in the timber truck to the Oda hospital where he regained consciousness. He was later transferred to the Military Hospital, Accra, where his left leg was amputated. The first defendant, however, made a report to the police at Oda.
It is on these facts that the plaintiff instituted this action in negligence claiming damages. For the plaintiff to succeed, he must establish the existence of a legal duty, breach of that duty and damage suffered as a result of that breach of duty. Thus Lord Wright has neatly put these requirements in Lochgelly Iron and Coal Co., Ltd. v. M'Mullan [1934] A.C. 1 at p. 25, H.L. as follows:
"In strict legal analysis, negligence means more than heedless or careless conduct, whether in omission or commission: it property connotes the complex concept of duty, brea
