JUDGMENT OF MENSA BOISON J.A.
This appeal is within a narrow compass on the one issue as to whether or not the servant of the defendants-appellants (hereinafter referred to as the appellants) was on the occasion of a traffic accident acting in the course of his employment as a driver. It would be necessary to state just enough facts of the case to give understanding to the arguments of counsel.
On 23 November 1974 the plaintiff-respondent (hereinafter referred to as the respondent) as a passenger, from Accra to Nsawam, on a Bedford commercial bus sustained serious bodily injuries when the said bus collided with a Fiat saloon car of the appellants' at the outskirts of Nsawam. The appellants' car was at the time travelling in the opposite direction and was being driven by one Ofori Armah, a driver employee of the appellant company; but who unfortunately was killed in the collision.
In due course, the respondent instituted this action at the Circuit Court, Accra against the appellant company for damages for personal injuries. The trial came on before Mrs. Striggner-Scott (then a circuit judge) who on 31 October 1980 found for the respondent. She held that the late Ofori was negligent in his management and control of the appellants' car on the occasion and that he was wholly to blame for the collision. Further, contrary to the gravamen of the defence, the learned circuit judge held that Ofori was on the occasion driving in the course of his employment as a servant of the appellant company, and in consequence found the appellants liable in damages to the respondent.
Before us the finding of negligence has hardly been contested. But the one serious ground taken and argued with some earnestness was thus directed at liability. It averred that the learned circuit judge erred in holding that Ofori was on the occasion of the accident acting in the course of his employment. In substance the submission of learned counsel for the appellants was that Ofori, on the day in question, had only limited instructions, namely to collect the Fiat car from its garage, have it washed and return it to the garage in readiness for use on Sunday, 24 November 1974. He never had any business of the company at Nsawam or thereabout, and that he must necessarily have been at Nsawam for purposes of his own, unconnected with the interests of the appellant, and in the course of which the collision occurred. Consequently, learned counsel argued that the case of Aitchison v. Page [p.54] Mo
