1998
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Mrs. G.T. Wood, J.A., delivering the lead opinion, affirmed a High Court distribution of property from the intestate estate of Kojo Oyeman Brown under PNDC Law 111, after Mercy Sagoe, one of three surviving wives, appealed the allocation of Plot No. 30, Korle Gonno. The plot contained two three-room-and-a-hall structures: a main building and an outhouse. Benin, J. awarded the main building to widow Diana Appiah and the outhouse to Sagoe, consistent with their existing occupation. On appeal, Sagoe narrowed her challenge to Plot No. 30, advancing four complaints: that alphabetical ordering of widows names produced unfair advantage; that a prior agreement on allocation was ignored; that pre-distribution expenditures improperly influenced the distribution; and that having two widows share the same land was unjust. The court held the alphabet was used only for identification; Section 14 requires equal shares; the two structures were of equal value; existing occupation and overall grouping, including flats elsewhere (nine for Sagoe, six for Appiah), supported a fair, equitable distribution. Finding no error of law or fact, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.
JUDGMENT
WOOD, J.A.:
This is an appeal from the decision of Benin, J. (as he then was) dated 11th July, 1994. The facts which gave rise to the proceedings culminating in the said decision are very simple indeed. One Kojo Oyeman Brown died intestate on 22nd February, 1986. He appears to have been an extremely wealthy man for he died possessed of several houses. He was also survived by three wives and twenty one children. Not suprisingly, it was these same factors namely, the fact of his intestacy, the extent of his wealth as well as the sheer size of his nuclear family which led to his family’s inability to distribute the properties among those entitled to them, to their satisfaction. His customary successor later applied for joint letters of administration for himself, the deceased eldest child, Ernest Kofi Brown and the appellant, who is one of the widows. Following upon an application subsequently brought by the appellant, the widow by name Mercy Sagoe, the learned trial judge proceeded to distribute the assets in terms of the intestate succession Law 1985 (PNDCL111). My own personal view is that the learned trial judge deserves our commendation rather than condemnation. For, in this rather extremely difficult exercise, an exercise in which it is impossible to achieve a 100% success rating, he carefully outlined the factors he intended to rely on to help him arrive at a just equitable and fair distribution and so succeeded in distributing the said properties among the spouses and their children as well as the extended family. The appellant, who as I have already pointed out initiated the court distribution, being dissatisfied with the result has appealed to this court on a number of grounds. At first impression, that this by merely examining the various grounds of appeal, the impression one gets and rightly so in my view, is that she intends to upset the apple cart, that is to say, even as the relief endorsed on the notice of appeal clearly stipulates, she is asking for nothing less than a setting aside of the entire ruling and consequently the whole distribution and requesting for a redistribution by this court, since appeals are by way of rehearing. However, at the hearing, counsel made it plain that their only and main complaint is with respect to the subject matter on plot No. 30 Korle Gonno. It is with respect to this property that she has prayed for a setting aside of the order giving part of it to her rival Diana Appiah. Her desire is that the e