KUNI v. STATE GOLD MINING CORPORATION AND ANOTHER

JUDGMENT OF SARKODEE J.

The plaintiff who is employed by the co-defendants, the Prestea Goldfields Ltd., as a machine driver was on 11 July 1974 injured whilst working underground at the said mines. He suffered a compressed fracture of the twelfth thoraxic vertebrae resulting in the paralysis of the lower limbs. The accident occurred when the plaintiff acting upon instructions was working as a shovel boy; a job which was not part of his normal duties. In the course of drilling and shovelling loose rocks a mass of loose graphite fell on him causing him those injuries as a result of which he has been in hospital since the date of the accident.

Originally the action was brought against the defendants only in their capacity as a gold mining corporation carrying on business at Prestea. After the evidence of the plaintiff upon application made on his behalf the Prestea Goldfields Ltd. were joined as co-defendants. In his amended statement of claim which followed the joinder the plaintiff stated that the co-defendants were agents and (or servants) of the defendants. The defendants denied that they were the employers of the plaintiff at the time of accident. The co-defendants on their part admitted that the defendants were a gold mining corporation but said that they the co-defendants were a subsidiary company of the defendants and that it was wrong for the plaintiff to sue the shareholders for the wrongs of a company. Mr. Kocuvie Tay, learned counsel for both the defendants and co-defendants, submitted that the Prestea Goldfields Ltd. were the owners of the mines and that the defendants as shareholders had been wrongly sued.

The State Gold Mining Corporation was established under the Statutory Corporations Act, 1964 (Act 232). By Part II of the Instrument of Incorporation of the State Gold Mining Corporation, 1965 (L.I. 400), the objects of the State Gold Mining Corporation are:

"(a) the mining of gold and the marketing of gold in Ghana and outside Ghana;

(b) the carrying on of such other activities as may appear to the Corporation to be incidental or conducive to the attainment of the objects set out in sub-paragraph (a) of this paragraph or any of them."

The governing body of the State Gold Mining Corporation is a board which has power to delegate to the managing director of a mining company the power to appoint persons as employees of the corporation. This power to appoint is reserved for the owner of the mines. It