PACKER v. SEKONDI/TAKORADI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL
1960
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- KORSAH,C.J.
- GRANVILLE SHARP
- AKIWUMI, JJ.S.C
Areas of Law
- Tort Law
1960
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In this case, the plaintiff sued the defendant council for damages due to the negligence of their employee while driving a council bus. The employee had been ordered by a foreman to drive the bus, and the incident occurred during the journey. The lower court initially found in favor of the plaintiff, but the defendant council appealed, arguing that the employee was not acting within the scope of his employment. The appellate court reversed the lower court's decision, holding that the council was liable as the employee was following orders from a superior, and the council had delegated authority to the foreman.
Granville Sharp, J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court: In this case the plaintiff has sued for damages for injuries occasioned by the negligence of a servant in the employment of the defendant council when driving a small motor-bus, the property of the council.
The employment, the negligence and the amount of damages have been found and assessed by the learned judge and the only question raised in this court has been whether he was correct in his finding that the council are not liable to the plaintiff because the co-defendant, the council's servant, was not acting in the course of his employment at the time when his negligence caused personal injury and damage to the plaintiff. The facts relative to the issue thus raised, as they are narrated in evidence, are in small compass. They are that the second defendant worked as a fitter with a driver's licence to enable him to drive vehicles on test. He worked on the material date under a foreman named Kwata and both Kwata and another foreman had the power to order vehicles out and also to test them, and the second defendant "was", to quote the council's manager, "under Mr. Kwata's orders and was bound to obey his instructions and normally was bound by his orders". Thus the council delegated to Kwata their own power to give such orders.
The particular bus driven by the second defendant at the time of the accident was one of a number of buses that had been withdrawn from general service, but were still available for private hire. It was a bus which was in fact held by the council between the hours of 4 to 5 a.m. and again between 10 to 11 p.m. for the use of municipal bus drivers and conductors going to and returning from their work. There were notices in the garage warning employees and all concerned not to use these buses for their private or unofficial use.
On the 10th May, 1956, Kwata the foreman ordered the second defendant, who was on duty at the time, to drive him home. This defendant's evidence was that:
It was quite proper for Mr. Kwata to give me instructions and/or orders which I should obey. He did not tell me that any testing was to be done. If Mr. Kwata asks me to do a job outside my profession such as mending a light even though I am not an electrician if I know how to do it, I will do it. It is not for me to question why. When he asked me to take out the bus I simply had to obey his orders".
The witness further stated that at the time it was raining heavily.
Such are the facts which ga