ASHANTI GOLDFIELDS CORPORATION v. GRUNSHIE

JUDGMENT OF JIAGGE J.A.

This was an appeal by the defendants (the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation) against the decision of the Circuit Court, Kumasi, delivered on 29 September 1972. The plaintiff was an employee of the defendant-corporation and claimed that on the day he was injured in an accident he stood at the head of a queue waiting to enter the cage to go down into the defendants' goldmine at Obuasi where he worked as a truck boy. When the cage arrived, he was the first to enter but although the cage could take only eight people, the defendants negligently permitted thirteen others to enter after him. The cage was consequently over-loaded and during the descent, due to overcrowding, those in the cage struggled for space and as a result, he was pushed to the wall of the cage and sustained injuries. He had fracture of the left humerus and also suffered severe shock.

The plaintiff depended on his allegation that the cage was overcrowded and that he sustained injuries when there was a struggle for space on the descent to the mine. The plaintiff, however, failed to convince the court below that the cage was overcrowded. There was evidence before the court that the cage carried eight people and not fourteen people, that the cage conformed to specification and that the injury to the plaintiff could have been prevented, if "the plaintiff stood in the cage with his hands by his side." The court held that the plaintiff failed to prove his case and that the injury he suffered was not due to any negligence on the part of the defendant corporation. The trial court, however, proceeded to award ¢600.00 damages to the plaintiff because he had suffered pain.

The defendant corporation appealed on the ground that "in view of his finding that the accident resulting in the injuries to the plaintiff was not caused by the negligence of the defendants, their servants or agents, the learned judge was wrong in awarding damages" and that, in any event, the damages were excessive. The plaintiff also cross-appealed against the finding respecting negligence - that there was sufficient evidence on record from which the learned trial judge ought to have found negligence on the part of the defendant corporation. Further, that the damages awarded for pain and suffering alone, without regard to the respondent's permanent disability, were unreasonable.

[p.442]

Taking the plaintiff's cross-appeal on negligence first, the plaintiff in order to recover compensation for injuries suffe