CHIEF TENGEY DJOKOTO IV, HEAD OF THE BATE TRIBE OF ANLO FOR HIMSELF AND AS REPRESENTING THE BATE TRIBE v. CHIEF SABA III of DJITA AND OTHERS
1950
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- COUSSEY, J
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Property and Real Estate Law
1950
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case resolves a land dispute between the Tovie and Bate tribes, with the court ruling in favor of the Bate tribe based on res judicata, due to a prior judgment involving the same land and parties, effectively precluding the defendants from claiming ownership again. The court grants the plaintiff's claim for declaration of title and orders the ejectment of the defendants, with a stay of execution for three months to allow for a resolution, imposing conditions to prevent further destruction on the land.
Ruling (delivered on 27th June 1950):
The land in dispute in this suit is identical in all respects with the land in dispute in Transferred Suit No. 4/1945, Acting Chief Akahoho Amu II and others of Dzita for themselves and on behalf of Tovie tribe v. Chief Tengey Dzokoto III of Anyako for himself and on behalf of the Bate tribe.(1) This is clear from a comparison of paragraphs 2 of the statements of claim in the two suits. The parties in the two suits are the same or are privies of the former parties. In the former suit the present defendants, then plaintiffs, claimed, as they now claim as defendants, that the land in dispute is owned by the Tovie tribe and that the Bate tribe are not the owners thereof while the present plaintiff's predecessor then defendant asserted that the land was the property of the Bate tribe. In his judgment in the former suit the learned Judge defined " the principal question for the court to decide is whether the land in dispute belongs to the Tovie tribe or to the Bate tribe " and he held that the plaintiff had failed to prove their claim. On the defendant's counterclaim for trespass he awarded £150 damages against the then plaintiffs now defendants and while entering judgment for the defendant now plaintiff on the plaintiff's claim, declared the Bate tribe owners of the Dzita land.
On appeal by the then plaintiff this declaration in favour of the present plaintiff was set aside on the ground that the plaintiff's predecessor had not counterclaimed as defendant for a declaration of title.
I am unable to agree with Mr. Ako Adjei's submission to this court that the Appeal Court by expunging that part of the Divisional Court's judgment only which gave the defendant an unsought declaration of title to the land, reversed the whole judgment into one upholding the claim of the present defendants then plaintiffs as owners of the land.
I hold that the Appeal Court dismissed the appeal and thereby upheld the decision of the Divisional Court that, as against the plaintiff's predecessor in title then defendant, the then plaintiffs had failed ' establish any title to the land.
It is clear that the self same right and title is substantially in issue in this as in the former suit; the fact that the plaintiffs in the one case were the defendants in the former case is immaterial and the fact that successors of some of the former parties are introduced in the suit now before the Court does not alter the case. Res Judicata is effective to est