GH - KWASI OSEI vs JOSEPH ADEMA & ANOR

Lying at the heart of every litigation in Court is the enjoyment of the fruits of the judgment delivered in the said case by the successful party.

The case before this Court for determination is one of such cases.

The Plaintiff/Judgment Creditor obtained judgment in this Court to recover various sums of money from the Defendant one Joseph Adema.

In execution of this Judgment, the Plaintiff/Judgment Creditor attached an uncompleted house belonging to the Defendant.

However in the course of the execution process, the Claimant herein, Beatrice Folivi intervened in the execution process by filing an interpleader claim.

She claimed ownership of the attached subject matter and contended therefore that the attached house cannot be attached in execution of the judgment entered in favour of the Judgment Creditor.

Issues were joined on the ownership of the attached house when the Claimant filed his notice of claim and the Plaintiff/Judgment Creditor disputed the claim.

By the direction of this Court the Claimant proceeded as the Plaintiff and the Plaintiff/Judgment Creditors as the Defendant.

This notwithstanding, I shall refer to the parties in this judgment as Claimant and Respondent respectively.

In the case of Salami v Sharami [1973] 2 GLR 364, the Court held as follows: “The most important object of an interpleader suit was to enable the Deputy Sheriff against whom the claim was made and who has seized the property and was now in possession thereof to obtain relief and to get a decision of the Court as regards the person to whom he had to release the property” Recently in the case of the Republic v High Court, Accra, Ex Parte Anyam (Platium holdings: Interested Party) [2009] GLR 225, the Supreme Court per holding one (1) similarly held: “A Sheriff’s interpleader would arise where a Sheriff has seized or intended to seize goods by way of execution and a person (other than the judgment debtor) had made a claim to the goods taken or intended to be taken on execution. ”In that regard, the proceedings initiated by the Sheriff would determine whether the property belonged to the Judgment Debtor (and could therefore be seized) or the Claimant…”See also the case of RT Briscol Limited v Preko [1964] GLR 322. It is therefore salient to say that in interpleader proceedings, like the one under consideration the fundamental issue to determine is the ownership of the attached property.

The question now is, is the attached subject house the property of the Def