ARTHUR HANSEN HAMMOND

JUDGMENT OF THE LORDS OF THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL, DELIVERED THE 1 7TH JULY, 1939 ,

This is an appeal from a judgment of the West African Court of Appeal, dated 21st December, 1935*, which reversed a judgment dated 13th July, 1935, of Sir G. C. Deane, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast, sitting as the Divisional Court of such Supreme Court for the Eastern Pro­vince of the Gold Coast Colony. The said judgment was in favour of the plaintiff appellant and held that he was the person entitled to sue as head of the Kreshie family, and that the joint property, more particularly described in the writ of summons and known as St. Janet's Harbour, High Street, Accra, in the Gold Coast Colony, was the family property of the Kreshie family, and that the title to St. Janet's Harbour was in the plaintiff as head of the Kreshie family.

The plaint which in the original form claimed possession of the said property was subsequently amended and was limited to a claim for a declaration of title in the plaintiff to the property as head of the Kreshie family and it was this claim that the Chief J:4stice, G. C. Deane, gave effect to in the concluding words of his judgment :-" I think the plaintiff, as head of the Kreshie family is entitled to the declaration asked for and I give judgment for him on that point against the defendant Randolph with costs. (Reported at 2 W.A.C.A. p. 385.)

On appeal this judgment was reversed and the plaintiff's claim was dismissed. The reason for the decision was that the Appeal Court held that the property in question was not the property of the Kreshie family but was self-acquired by the ancestor of the respondent, ]. H. W. Randolph, who thereby acquired the property as a fee simple proprietor with full right of disposal.

Various subsidiary matters were dealt with in the judg­ment of the Trial Judge which were not raised in the Court of Appeal and which it is therefore not necessary for their . Lordships to consider, and the sole issue that was presented for their decision was whether the property known as St. Janet's Harbour was property which had passed by inherit­ance from Kreshie to the members of her family or had been acquired as a separate estate by the female ancestor of the respondent. The learned Trial Judge held on the evidence that, apart from two small properties with which their Lord­ships will afterwards deal, the property known as St. Janet's Harbour was gifted to Kreshie by her husband. Hi