RICHARD PEPRAH v. THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, SUNYANI & OTHERS

GBADEGBE, JSC:-

We have before us an appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal. By that judgment, the decision of the trial court on the question of negligence including the apportionment of the plaintiff‘s contribution was upheld. The learned justices of the Court of Appeal however interfered with the award of damages by reducing it from GH₵425,000.00 to GH₵ 150,000.00. Before us the plaintiff has launched an attack on both the determination of negligence particularly that relating to the apportionment of liability that was assessed at 15% against the plaintiff against the defendants and also the reduction of damages awarded in his favor at the trial court.

Before proceeding to consider the appeal, we need turn our attention to the response filed by the parties to a point of law raised by us under rule 6(8) regarding the question of vicarious liability of the 1st 2nd and 4th defendants for the negligence on which the claim herein was based. Although both parties complied with the direction, we would like to address certain points of law raised by learned counsel for the plaintiff regarding our authority to raise points of law on an appeal. In his submission, he contended that to be good, the question should be limited to jurisdiction. In support thereof, reference was made to certain authorities, but we say at once that the arguments made by him suffer from a misreading of the operative words by which rule 6(8) is expressed. In our view. the power conferred on us under the rule is an acknowledgement of the authority in the court to raise points for parties to respond thereto is not derived from the rules of Court but arises out of the requirement of the duty to deliver decisions in accordance with the law for which reason at our appointment we make an open declaration to that effect. The power of determining appeals is derived both from the Constitution and the Courts Act, (Act 459) and accordingly what the rules provide is only to regulate how the court may take a point of law not raised by the parties into account; it is limited only to ensuring that the Court does not without affording the parties before it the opportunity of responding thereto to base its decision on it. In fact, from the formulation of the rule, there is no indication that the rule was conferring any new authority on the Court. That the power of the Court under the rule is not limited to jurisdictional issues as is evidenced by a collection of cases including Akufo Addo v Cat