SETH SEADEY v. MRS. GERTRUDE ADJATEY ADDY
2018
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- K. A. ACQUAYE JA (PRESIDING)
- S. K. GYAN JA
- M. M. AGYEMANG (MRS.) JA
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Civil Procedure
- Evidence Law
- Tort Law
2018
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This case concerns a boundary dispute at Srodae, Koforidua, between property originally held by the respondents father, Kofi Adjatey, and land claimed by the appellants father, Kwaku Seadey. The respondent and her siblings sued for declaration of title, possession, and damages, asserting that the disputed stripearmarked decades ago for a proposed roadwas continuously used by their father as a car lot and shed and then by the siblings for commercial purposes, until the appellant reportedly caused its demolition and attempted fencing. The High Court found for the respondent. On appeal, the appellant argued the judgment was against the weight of evidence, the respondent failed to describe the land and prove title, and the court wrongly rejected his title and surveyor evidence. Applying its rehearing powers and the appellate standard, the Court of Appeal emphasized the respondents unchallenged evidence of exclusive possession and corroboration, found the survey evidence nonprobative, held that any reliance on EI 195/61 was unnecessary but harmless, upheld general damages, and dismissed the appeal with costs.
AGYEMANG JA:
In this appeal against the judgment of the High Court Koforidua, delivered on the 31st of October 2014, the defendant/appellant (hereafter referred to alternately as the defendant, or the appellant) seeks a setting aside of the judgment of that court.
The matters that have given rise to the appeal are set out hereafter.
The plaintiff/respondent (referred to as the plaintiff, or the respondent) brought suit at the court below for herself and for her siblings, seeking inter alia, a declaration of title to land situate at Srodae, Koforidua, and bounded on all sides by the property of Kofi Adjatey, Kofi Kumah, Defendant’s land and the Koforidua Huhunya Road; recovery of possession, and damages for trespass.
It was the case of the plaintiff that her father who died in 1973 was in his lifetime, a transport owner. She alleged that in 1943, her father acquired a parcel of land with building thereon, from one Kwame Adjaye who conveyed same to the plaintiff’s father with the consent of the Omanhen of New Juaben. It was her evidence that in 1954, her father put up a building on a portion of the land. She recounted that part of the land acquired by her father was later earmarked for a proposed motor road and that the said plan having been abandoned by the government, the land reverted to her father. She alleged that while that portion of the land, facing the Koforidua-Huhunya Road remained earmarked, her father put up a temporary structure, a shed which he used as a car lot for his three commercial trucks, and a store to keep his spare parts in. The plaintiff further alleged that the defendant’s father who was a close friend of her father, and who had no property in Koforidua, was given some land by her father to build on. Their two plots of land, contiguous to each other, were separated by the stretch of land which had been the proposed motor road.
According to the plaintiff, her father’s use of the land (which had been the proposed road), as a parking lot never changed, and he continued to use it as such until his death in 1973. After his death, the plaintiff’s siblings remained on the land, carrying on various commercial activities, including selling from a store and kiosks, until the shed was demolished. It was the plaintiff’s case (which was not challenged in cross-examination), that it was the defendant who reportedly caused the demolition. The defendant then commenced the construction of a fence wall which fairly blocked the entrance to the pl