2018
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This Court of Appeal judgment arises from a dispute within the Boakye family over properties listed in the 1997 Will of Edward Osei Boakye, the well-known businessman "Boakye Mattress." Mary Akyaa Boakye claimed that House No. 29 Volta Avenue, Kumasi; House No. 6/14 Walker Avenue, Airport Residential Area, Accra; a Total filling station at United Mattress House; and a significant stake in Furniture Joinery & Construction Co. Ltd were not part of Edward’s estate. She relied on exhibits from the Lands Commission, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, and petitions to the Office of the President and the Confiscated Assets Committee. The defendants argued estoppel, limitation, and sought accounts. The Court held that documentary evidence and equitable considerations proved Mary’s ownership of House No. 29 Volta Avenue, setting aside the life-interest finding and dismissing the related counterclaim. It affirmed the High Court on the remaining issues, ruling the US$470,000 claim time-barred, rejecting the filling-station gift and shareholding claims, upholding the intermeddling finding, and dismissing the family-property claims.
JUDGMENT
HENRY KWOFIE J.A.
The present appeal has been launched by the plaintiff/appellant against the judgment of the High Court delivered on 22nd September 2016.
The trial High Court in that judgment dismissed all the plaintiff/appellant’s claims and entered judgment in favour of the defendants/respondents on their counter-claim.
Dissatisfied with the said judgment, the plaintiff/appellant (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff) launched the instant appeal on 20/12/2016 initially on the following grounds:
a) The judgment is against the weight of evidence.
b) Further grounds of appeal would be filed upon receipt of the record of proceedings.
Subsequently the plaintiff with leave of this Court filed the following
additional grounds of appeal on 8th February 2018:
a) The trial Court judge misdirected herself in law on the application of the principle of estoppel against the plaintiff.
b) The trial judge erred when she failed to establish the ownership of the properties in issue.
c) The decision of the trial Court that the plaintiff has only a life interest in House No. 29 Volta Avenue, Nhyiaeso, Kumasi is unsupportable in law.
d) The decision that the demand for payments of monies advanced by the plaintiff to the testator even if valid was statute barred is erroneous and not supportable in law.
e. The decision that the property which was devised under the Will to the Plaintiff was duly vested in her was erroneous.
f. The decision by the trial Court that the Testator during his lifetime exercised control over his properties to the exclusion of the Plaintiff was not supported by the facts on record.
g. The trial High Court judge misdirected herself when she made the decision that property with H/No. 6/14 Walker Avenue, Airport Residential Area formed part of the Testator’s family property.
h. The trial Court judge erred when she decided that the signatures of the Testator on Exhibits D and D1 were markedly different from what occurs on the Will without taking into consideration the usual manner in which the Testator had been writing to the Plaintiff.
i. The trial High Court erred when it stated that the Plaintiff has not been able to adduce any evidence on the gift of the filling station by the Testator to her when indeed evidence on record suggested otherwise.
j. The trial Court erred when it ordered that the Plaintiff should render accounts to the defendant without having considered the position of the Plaintiff in those properties duri