NETTEY v. ODJIDJA & ANOR.

This is an appeal from a decision of the Judge in the Land Court who, on the 31st December, 1955, directed that judgment be entered for the defendants, the respondents in this Court, in a suit in which the [p.265] appellant claimed a declaration of title to land situated at South Adabraka, damages for trespass and recovery of possession and other ancillary relief.

There is an interesting history attaching to the land in dispute, and this may usefully be outlined at the outset. The appellant based her claim to title on a Deed of Conveyance dated 13th June, 1949 between herself and the then representatives of the Nah Korley Family as vendors. The first respondent is in possession as a tenant of Amarh the second respondent, who claimed at one time the right and title to ownership of the land through one Isaac Fiscian, from whom he said he had purchased under an Indenture dated the 18th July, 1931. This claim was tested in proceedings instituted in 1933 by one S. Q. Nelson, who sued Amarh in trespass. The course of this action was protracted, and it was not until 1941 that a conclusion was reached, as the result of which Amarh paid to Nelson a sum of £67 for the right to remain in possession. Nelson claimed title through Isaac Fiscian and gave evidence on behalf of Fiscian when in 1936 one Hammond, a member of the Nah Korley family, sued him and claimed title to the land in an action before the Gbese Mantse. In this action Hammond succeeded in recovering judgment on behalf of the family.

In 1934 this same Hammond brought an action before the Paramount Chief of the Ga State against Amarh and another in respect of the same land, but no more was heard of this proceeding after the Deputy Commissioner of the Eastern Province had, on the 15th September, 1935 refused to transfer it to the High Court as requested by the defendants.

It seems that Hammond, while the suit between Nelson and Amarh, above referred to, was pursuing its protracted course, thought it wiser to protect his own interest and title in his action against Fiscian, through whom Nelson was claiming. In this Hammond again on behalf of the family succeeded in establishing title to a large area of land, including the land in dispute in the present case.

The defence to the appellant’s claim before the trial-Judge was that the respondent and his predecessors had been in long and undisturbed possession long before Ashaley Okoe and others purported to convey to the appellant, that Nelson had been in p