AWISI v. NYARKO

JUDGMENT OF HAYFRON-BENJAMIN J.

This is an appeal from the decision of the Tano Local Court held at Yamfo on 2 March 1965. The plaintiff was by that decision declared the owner of the cocoa farm, the subject-matter in dispute, which is at a place commonly known and called “AHYIAYEM” on Yamfo stool land and bounded by the cocoa farms of Akosua Kraa, Amma Nsuapem, Adwoa Ayisi the defendant and Kofi Darko.

The plaintiff's case in the trial court was that the farm in dispute is one of two farms given to her by her late husband one Kwame Nyina as a gift. This gift was in the presence of witnesses and she accepted the gift, and gave her husband some drink and some money by way of aseda. She entered into possession by placing a caretaker, one Gruma, in charge of the farm, who harvested the crops twice for the plaintiff. The defendant claiming to have been given this same farm as a gift by the same man collected the third crop which had been harvested by the caretaker, and this was the immediate cause of the litigation.

She further said, and this is amply supported by the evidence on the record, that after her husband had subsequently purported to give this farm as a gift to her rival, the defendant, she lodged a complaint to one Kwasi Achiampong, the former Akwamuhene. There was an arbitration and the husband was found in the wrong, and ordered to pacify the plaintiff and to give the farm back to her.

The defendant's answer to this case is that the farm was given to her as a gift, and that it was never given to the plaintiff at all. The local court magistrate, despite the tortuous style in which he framed his judgment, found as a fact that the farm was first given to the plaintiff and then to the defendant. He also accepted the evidence as to the arbitration. The questions that arise for the determination in this appeal are therefore:

(1) whether the defendant is bound by the arbitration award; and

(2) if not whether the husband could validly revoke a completed gift to the plaintiff.

In Abbey v. Ollennu,1 a vendor sold and conveyed land to the defendant, who built on the land in ignorance of the fact that after [p.6] his purchase, and before he built, the plaintiffs had sued his vendor and obtained a declaration of title in their favour. The plaintiffs then sued the defendant for recovery of possession of the land and argued that the defendant was bound by the declaratory judgment obtained against the defendant's vendor. It was held by the West African C