MEDIENHIA v. NYABI AND ANOTHER

JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C.

Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. This action started in the Akan Native Court "B" Ahamansu in August 1954 where Nicholas Nyabi sued per V. K. Letsa and claimed against the defendant a declaration of title, recovery of possession and damages for trespass to a piece of land situate at Ahamansu-Titiaka. Together with his application for a writ of summons, the said Nicholas Nyabi filed a motion for an interim injunction to restrain the defendants from dealing with the land during the pendency of the suit. Although it is clear both on the writ of summons and the motion that there was only one plaintiff namely Nicholas Nyabi, and that V. K. Letsa was to be only a representative of the plaintiff, the first defendant Adjoa Medienhia, in an affidavit in opposition to the motion erroneously cited the title of the suit describing V. K. Letsa as a second plaintiff whereas the said Letsa was not personally interested in the subject-matter of the suit.

The title of the case from that time until now has appeared as above. No order was ever sought and none was ever made joining V. K. Letsa as a second plaintiff to the suit. That V. K. Letsa was not a plaintiff in the suit but only a representative of Nicholas Nyabi is clear from a letter dated the 7th February, 1955, written by Nicholas Nyabi to the trial native court requesting them to allow the said Letsa to represent him and prosecute the claim on his behalf in that court.

It is observed thereafter that the plaintiff Nicholas Nyabi took no further interest in the proceedings and so also did the second defendant right up to this court. V. K. Letsa however assumed and played the role of a plaintiff, and at the hearing gave evidence and cross-examined in the first person, as if it was the person Nicholas Nyabi himself speaking. In such circumstances the evidence that Letsa gave as if he were the person Nicholas Nyabi should be excluded from consideration in arriving at a decision. But he produced some documentary evidence as to Nicholas Nyabi's interest in the subject-matter of the suit. Both from the documentary and oral evidence it is clear that V. K. Letsa himself has no personal interest in the suit. The trial native court delivered judgment on the 23rd February, 1956, dismissing the plaintiff's claim. The only person aggrieved and entitled to appeal against that judgment was the plaintiff Nicholas Nyabi and not V. K. Letsa. Nicholas Nyabi however did not file any notic