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July 20, 1976
HIGH COURT
GHANA
JUDGMENT OF EDUSEI J.
The plaintiffs as personal representatives of one K. M. Eyeson are claiming damages for the benefit of his estate as well as of his dependants including the second plaintiff.
The deceased, K. M. Eyeson, was the branch manager of Ghana Commercial Bank, Sunyani, and he also acted as area manager for the Brong-Ahafo Region. On 7 September 1970 he received telephone instructions from the Head Office of the Ghana Commercial Bank in Accra that he should proceed to Teppa to check the accounts of the Ghana Commercial Bank in that town, close it and collect the keys and take them back to his office in Sunyani.
A contractor, however, had been awarded a contract to fell all trees along-side the Bechem-Goaso road. The employees of the contractor were engaged between milestones 51 and 52 felling trees near Brosankro under traffic guards with warning flags at each end to warn motorists on their approach to the section. Mr. Eyeson was returning in a Ghana Commercial Bank landrover vehicle No. GL 9331 when at a certain point on the road the guard at that end signalled the driver with a red flag to stop as one of the big trees was about to fall. The driver ignored the signal, and in his bid to pass through the section the vehicle was trapped and Mr. Eyeson and the driver were killed on the spot. The driver by name Pobee was the servant of the Ghana Commercial Bank, the defendants. These facts of the accident are contained in the police report, exhibit A, which was let in evidence without any objection. Indeed, the defendants do not, as their counsel stated in his address, seriously contest liability.
The defendants had a policy of insurance covering their fleet of vehicles which included landrover No. GL 9331, and since their insurers Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance (Ghana) Ltd., were not prepared to indemnify them the said insurance company was brought into the suit as a third party. However, it is quite clear from the evidence as revealed by exhibit A that the driver of the defendants' landrover No. GL 9331 was negligent in the circumstances; he was the cause of death of Mr. Eyeson and himself, and the defendants are therefore vicariously liable to the plaintiffs.
I now come to consider the question of damages. Mr. Eyeson who was a manager of the bank was in receipt of ¢4,040.00 per annum and his prospects of promotion were bright if consideration is given to the fact that as a branch manager at Sunyani he also acted as an area manager for th
AI Generated Summary
Edusei J. adjudicated a wrongful-death and insurance-indemnity dispute stemming from a fatal accident involving Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) manager K. M. Eyeson and the bank’s driver Pobee on the Bechem–Goaso road near Brosankro. Acting on peremptory instructions from GCB’s Head Office in Accra to travel to Teppa to audit and close the branch and return with the keys to Sunyani, Eyeson rode in a GCB Land Rover (GL 9331). Workers were felling roadside trees and a traffic guard signaled a stop, which the driver ignored; the vehicle was trapped and both men were killed. The court, relying on a police report admitted without objection, found negligence and held GCB vicariously liable. Edusei J. assessed dependency and loss-of-expectation-of-life damages, apportioning most to the widow and children. On GCB’s third-party claim against fleet insurer Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance (Ghana) Ltd., the court construed the policy’s exclusion for injuries arising out of and in the course of employment, concluded Eyeson’s travel remained in the course of employment, and dismissed indemnity.