JOHN K. ABOADE v. GEORGE T. ODONKOR (DECEASED) & ORS
2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- CECILIA SOWAH, JA
- ANTHONY OPPONG, JA
- ANGELINA MENSAH-HOMIAH, JA
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Evidence Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Justice Anthony Oppong JA authored the Court of Appeal’s judgment arising from a land dispute at Ashorkor‑Somanya in Ghana’s Yilo Krobo District. The plaintiff sought declaration of title and possession over about 14.36 acres and an order to the Regional Lands Officer, Lands Commission, Koforidua to expunge defendants’ transactions and register the plaintiff family’s interest. After pleadings closed and witness statements were filed, the Electricity Corporation of Ghana (2nd defendant) obtained a strike‑out under Order 11 Rule 18, with the High Court dismissing the action as statute‑barred and disclosing no reasonable cause of action. On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that summary termination power must be exercised sparingly, particularly when a case is set for plenary trial, and ruled that the trial judge wrongly relied on unstamped statutory declarations, which are inadmissible. The court found adverse possession not clearly established on affidavit evidence and allowed the appeal, recommending transfer for a merits hearing before a different judge.
ANTHONY OPPONG JA.
The Plaintiff/Appellant (to be referred to as plaintiff hereafter) initiated action in the High Court, Koforidua against the Defendants/Respondents. Essentially, the action was for declaration of title and recovery of possession to a parcel of land containing an approximate area of 14.36 acres, situate and being at Ashorkor-Somanya in the Yilo Krobo District in the Eastern Region of the Republic of Ghana. The Plaintiff also sought an order directed at the Regional Lands Officer, Lands Commission, Koforidua to expunge from its records the transactions of the defendants so as to make it possible for the Regional Lands Officer, Lands Commission, Koforidua to register the plaintiff’s family interest in the land.
The action initially was against 12 defendants but pursuant to a notice of discontinuance, most of the original defendants (7 of them) were disjoined to the suit, leaving 5 Defendants including Electricity Corporation of Ghana, the 2nd defendant/respondent in this appeal. The 2nd defendant was originally the 10th Defendant. (The designation 2nd defendant will be maintained for purposes of this appeal). The change was effected by an amended writ of summons filed on the 22nd May 2018.
To this action the 2nd defendant entered appearance and filed a statement of defence wherein it pleaded that the action was statute barred. Consequently, one of the issues joined and set down for determination at the trial was ‘whether the Plaintiff’s action is statute barred’
Subsequently, the Plaintiff filed an application for interlocutory injunction on 21st October 2019. In the supporting affidavit to this application was attached certain statutory declarations relating to the land Plaintiff sued for, quite apart from other depositions relating to the root of title to the land. Particularly, in paragraph 6 of the supporting affidavit what gave cause to the plaintiff to file the injunction application can be discerned, namely that in spite of the pendency of the action the 2nd defendant was developing portions of the disputed land by putting up new structures on the land.
According to 2nd defendant, it was the statutory declarations attached to the supporting affidavit in the plaintiff’s application for interlocutory injunction and the other depositions that triggered an application it filed on 30th October 2019 for an ‘order to strike out plaintiff’s pleadings … for being frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of the court’s process’. It may be gleane