KOFI ATAKORAH vs SERWAH BONSU
2019
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- HIS LORDSHIP EMMANUEL AMO YARTEY (J)
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Contract Law
2019
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This case involves a dispute over an alleged debt for shipping containers from China to Ghana. The Plaintiff claimed he guaranteed a credit facility for the Defendant to ship two containers, costing $11,100 total. He sued to recover $6,600 he claims is still owed after a partial payment of $4,500. The Defendant denied owing the full amount. The court ultimately dismissed the Plaintiff's claim, finding he lacked legal capacity to bring the suit in his personal name. The court determined that any debt owed was to the company HAPPY CARGO, CHINA, not to the Plaintiff personally. The case illustrates important principles of civil procedure regarding legal capacity to sue and the consequences of lacking such capacity.
At the Application for Directions stage the Court set down the following issues for determination:
1. Whether or not the Defendant herein got the Plaintiff to guarantee two (2) containers costing $6, 600. 00 and $4, 500. 00 in China in 2007 to ship her goods to Ghana to be paid in Ghana to the wife of the Plaintiff in exchange for Bills of Lading on the shipment for her to clear the same.
2. Whether or not the Defendant used her “Prophetess” cloak she has dawned on herself to get the ignorant wife of the Plaintiff under her control even to the extent of getting her to believe that she was pregnant and that the pregnancy would be better protected if she moved to live with her in her Madina house and got her to release the Bills of Lading documents to her to clear her goods without paying for the cost of the containers.
3. Whether or not the part payment of $4, 500. 00 made to the Police at the Police Headquarters, Accra in the absence of the Plaintiff is not an admission by the Defendant of her liability to the claims of the Plaintiff.
4. Whether or not the Plaintiff is not entitled to his claims against the Defendant.
5. Any further or other issues raised by the pleadings in this suit.
The case of the Plaintiff as captured by his Statement of Claim is that he is a Ghanaian but for the past years is ordinarily resident in China since 2003 and an employee of HAPPY CARGO, CHINA a private company in China engaged in manufacturing of containers for shipping of goods, among others.
That Defendant was introduced to him in China by his wife, Elizabeth Abena Darko who is also a trader and resident in Ghana, as a friend trader and the owner of LIANA FOODS ENTERPRISE.
Plaintiff pleaded further that sometime in August, 2007, his wife informed him that her friend the Defendant was coming to China to buy goods and pleaded with him to assist her in her purchases and shipping of her goods as he has been doing for her when she went to China.
The Plaintiff says that a week after this information and prayer of the wife, the wife herself came down to China also to do some purchases.
And that it was after the wife’s arrival in China that the Defendant called her and asked to be directed to their house which they did.
Upon coming to their home, the Defendant pleaded with the Plaintiff to allow her to move in to live with them to save her hotel bills since she was running short of finance and they granted her request. The Plaintiff says that he later learnt from