AYENIM v. POKU

JUDGMENT OF QUASHIE-SAM J.

This is an appeal by the defendant from the judgment of the District Court Grade II, Tarkwa, dated 3 February 1975. The facts are quite simple and mostly not in dispute. The plaintiff is the daughter of the late Kwasi Dormang of Huni Valley. He died possessed of a farm and a house. This was conceded by the defendant. It was the case of the plaintiff that her father died testate, demising in his will: (1) his farm, and (2) his two bedrooms which he occupied during his lifetime, to her and her two brothers, namely, Yaw Nkrumah and Kwame Bedu; that her father died in 1972; that on the 40th day after her father's death she and her brother produced the will to the family but the family headed by the defendant refused to accept it; that the defendant had driven her and her labourers away from the farm given to her and her brothers under the will. She tendered the alleged will as exhibit A and closed her case thereby.

The defendant's case was nothing different as to the facts. He is the brother of, and successor to, the late Kwasi Dormang, the father of the plaintiff. His case was that his late brother had already given a share of his cocoa farm to the Plaintiff and her brothers. He admits the fact that on the 40th day after his brother's death, the plaintiff and her brothers produced a will allegedly made by his late brother Kwasi Dormang, which he and the rest of the family objected to and refused to accept on the ground that the family did not know of it and they disbelieved its contents. He also does not dispute the plaintiff's evidence that he has taken possession of his late brother's farm and house from the plaintiff.

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The defendant's case then was that he did not believe in the veracity or genuineness of the alleged will. He called Kojo Amadu as a witness who confessed that he did not know anything about the matter except that the defendant told him that his niece had fought with the plaintiff as a result of which the plaintiff had moved from the house which the plaintiff 's father gave her, and pleaded with him to call the plaintiff for a settlement and for the plaintiff to come back to live in that house, but the plaintiff refused to go for any settlement except in her own home. This witness is the uncle of the plaintiff. The defendant called another witness, Abena Sarfowah, who apparently must be a member of the family of the plaintiff's deceased father. She also disputed the genuineness of the alleged will.

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