JUDGMENT OF AMISSAH J.A.
It is not disputed that the plaintiff's family, the Nikoi Olai stool family (hereafter called the "Nikoi Olai family" for short) are the owners of a tract of land called Mukose lands. It is also not disputed that adjacent to the Mukose lands is another tract, known as Dome lands, owned by the Onamrokor Adain family (hereafter called the "Onamrokor family") of which the defendant, now respondent, was the head. The real controversy in this case is as to the proper boundary which demarcates these respective lands. The plaintiff, now appellant, draws his relevant boundary at a place which the respondent says eats into their Dome lands while the respondent takes a boundary which the appellant says lies within their Mukose lands. Thus we have the all too familiar situation in disputes of this kind where each of the parties lays claim to a parcel of land lying in between undisputed properties belonging to them. The question for the trial court was whether the appellant's claim to that parcel of land was sustainable. The court found that it was not. From that decision the appellant now appeals to us on a number of grounds.
Before the merits of the appellant's case on the evidence can be discussed, however, one hurdle needs to be cleared. That is, whether the issue for determination raised by this case is not res judicata. It was pleaded in the defence to the plaintiff's claim that in an earlier suit, Reindorf v. Amadu [1962] 1 G.L.R. 508, S.C. between the respondent and the Manche Ankrah family of Accra as plaintiffs against Amadu and Braimah, which the appellant's predecessor in title, Nii Amasah Nikoi Olai (later substituted by Nii Amon Kotei) as the head and lawful representative of the King Tackie family of Asere Djorshie joined as co-defendant (hereafter referred to as the Amadu case), the land now claimed as part of the Mukose lands by the appellant was the subject of the dispute between the parties. According to the pleadings, that same land was then claimed by the appellant's predecessor in title who then represented the King Tackie family of Asere Djorshie, a branch of the Nikoi Olai family. Judgment was given in that case for the present respondent by the High Court and was affirmed by the then Supreme Court. And the effect of that judgments said the respondent, was to estop the appellant's family from laying claim to that same land ever again.
The reply by the appellant to this pleading was twofold. First, he pleaded that i
