GEORGE A. SARPONG v. WISCONSIN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE & ORS
2016
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- HIS LORDSHIP ERIC KYEI BAFFOUR JUSTICE OF THE HIGH COURT
Areas of Law
- Contract Law
- Tort Law
- Evidence Law
2016
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The plaintiff, a former law lecturer, sued the defendants claiming they had created a nuisance and violated his privacy by constructing buildings that blocked access to his property and exposed his family to constant viewing. He sought relocation and compensation based on a purported promise. The High Court found no valid contract for relocation but upheld his claim of nuisance due to noise and misleading signage. The court dismissed other claims and awarded general damages for nuisance.
JUDGMENT
I preface this judgment with the words of John Milton, a 17th century poet who served under Oliver Cromwell in England, in his epic work, Paradise Lost. He writes:
“They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.”
This sums up the tragedy of the case of the Plaintiff whose dream of an Eden like environment has been shattered by what he claims to be the activities of the defendants.
The plaintiff, a former contract law lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon, who in the dying embers of his glittering career in the academia was the director of the Ghana School of Law, on the 3rd of July, 2012 conceived and birthed the writ at the of the High Court claiming the following reliefs:
a. An order to compel the Defendants to fulfill their promise made to the Plaintiff to relocate and compensate Plaintiff for the nuisance cause Plaintiff.
b. Damages for nuisance, invasion of privacy, deceit and/or fraud
c. Such further or other reliefs as in the circumstance may appear just, in particular, an order directed at Defendants to abate the nuisance and perpetual injunction restraining the Defendants whether by themselves, servants, agents, privies, whomsoever from interfering with Plaintiff and his family’s quite enjoyment of the land.
The basis of the prayer of plaintiff is adequately captured in the statement of claim that accompanied the filing of the writ. Plaintiff claims to be the owner of a seven bedroom property at Haatso Agbogba, Accra, a house he move into occupation in 2007 where he enjoyed total privacy more so as the area had been zoned for residential purposes. That this reminiscent paradise environment began to shake when just after a few years of occupation of this dream property the 1st defendant institution began construction of a large classroom block complex behind the wall in front of plaintiff’s house thereby blocking access to a portion of the property of plaintiff. This was to be the commencement of erosion of the joy and privacy from his property as 1st defendant then purchased an adjoining property, which had been a residential house, demolished same and start