MADAM EUGENIA AKUETTEH v. KOFI BAAH & 67 OTHERS & ORS

GBADEGBE, JSC:

My Lords, we have before us an appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal that affirmed the decision of the trial High Court in the above consolidated actions. The sole ground of appeal before us is the general ground “That the judgment is against the weight of the evidence.” As the relevant authorities on concurrent findings require us as the final appellate court to intervene in respect of such concurrent findings by the two lower courts only when such decisions are perverse or unreasonable, the question for our decision turns largely on the probative value of the evidence on which the decisions of the two lower courts is based. By the effect of the authorities, the appellants must demonstrate clearly that the factual determinations suffer from a misapplication of the relevant rules of evidence or glossed over vital documentary or oral evidence and or misread the evidence. See: Gregory Tandoh v Hanson [2010] SCGLR 970. Simply put, the effect of the evidence contained in the record of appeal should in the eyes of a reasonable tribunal point in a direction other than that accepted by the two lower courts. And in this regard, it is important to reiterate what the Court has repeatedly said that provided the decision of the two lower courts is supported by the evidence, we cannot interfere to substitute their decision with our own view of the facts on which their decision was based.

Before turning to consider the said ground of appeal, it is observed that notwithstanding the fact that the decision on appeal was from a consolidated matter, the right to appeal, to be good must be exercised separately in relation to each such suit. Although this is an important procedural point, we are of the opinion that as the parties have contested the appeals without adverting their minds thereto, it is of no consequence as to render the proceedings based there on improperly constituted such as to vitiate the appeal before us. In this regard, this observation is made for future guidance only.

Turning to the appeal, we have examined the record very carefully and attended to the respective submissions of the parties and reached the view that the decision of the learned justices of the Court of Appeal was carefully and thoroughly reached on the evidence in a manner that reveals a detailed evaluation and the consideration of the probabilities, which turn on the-case, so we are unable to reach a different decision on the appeal. It is significant to note