Try asking the following...
Try asking the following...
October 31, 1939
WEST AFRICAN COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
The following joint judgment was delivered:-
BUTLER LLOYD, ACTING C.J., NIGERIA, CAREY AND BROOKE, JJ.
This is an appeal from a judgment of Martindale, J. in three consolidated cases in favour of the plaintiffs in the first two cases and for defendants in the third.
On the appeal coming on for hearing it appeared to us that the first ground of appeal which is in the following terms :-
“ The learned Judge was wrong in law in first accepting the evidence given before the Referee and afterwards without indication thereof to the parties or their Counsel and after the parties had closed their respective cases to reject the same when considering his judgment since the defendants in Suits Nos. E.16/437 and 15/37 and plaintiff in Suit No. E.16/37 having given evidence before the Referee to establish their plea of res judicata and estoppel on the part of their opponents and the Court having first accepted the evidence taken by the Referee offered no further evidence to prove that the parties in the previous Suits in the Provincial Court, Okigwi, Nos. 4/20 and 11/20 and Native Court, Uruala, Suits Nos. 66/33 and 67/33 and in the Suits now on appeal were the same or are privies and that the land the subject matter in those previous Suits and the Suits now on appeal is the same as it was understood that the only evidence required before the Judge was evidence to prove damages or no damages as claimed by plaintiffs-in Suits Nos. E.16/437 and E.15/37.”
was likely to dispose of the whole matter. We therefore requested Counsel for both sides to argue on it before going into the other grounds of appeal.
Having heard argument on this ground we are of opinion that the judgment of the learned trial Judge cannot stand.
The matter had been remitted to a Referee the evidence before whom was mainly directed to the issue of res judicata. At the trial both sides objected to the admission of the proceedings before the Referee but the learned Judge admitted them “ for what they are worth.”
He having done so the parties were entitled to assume that the evidence given before the Referee would be considered by the learned Judge and the evidence actually tendered before him was, mainly at any rate, directed to the issue of trespass. Yet when he came to deliver judgment the learned trial Judge rejected the proceedings before the Referee in toto. We think that having done so he ought to have afforded the parties an opp
AI Generated Summary
In a joint judgment delivered by Butler Lloyd, Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, with Justices Carey and Brooke, the appellate court allowed an appeal arising from three consolidated suits decided by Martindale, J. The proceedings had been remitted to a Referee to take evidence chiefly on res judicata. Although both sides objected to admitting the Referee’s proceedings, the trial judge accepted them “for what they are worth,” prompting parties to direct their live proof toward trespass rather than res judicata. However, at judgment the trial judge rejected the Referee proceedings in toto. The appellate court held that, having admitted those materials, the judge ought to have afforded the parties an opportunity to tender replacement evidence on res judicata. Concluding the trial judgment could not stand, the court allowed the appeal and remitted the case to hear whatever res judicata evidence the parties wish to offer. It further ordered costs: 60 guineas in the appellate court, set aside costs below, payment out of the deposit, and that costs below of hearing and rehearing abide the final outcome.