VANDERPUYE v. ANGLO-GUINEA PRODUCE CO. LTD
1896
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- LORD WATSON.
- LORD HobHOUSE.
- LORD MORRIS.
- Sir Richard Couch
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Evidence Law
1896
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In an appeal from the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast, the Judicial Committee, per Lord Watson, reversed the Full Court’s order striking Mr. Renner off the roll. Renner, a barrister admitted in 1884, prepared for Joseph Wilson Sackey a mortgage over an Elmina property in favor of Native Chief Eccra Kwaku, pursuant to Sackey’s instructions to antedate it to 26 September 1884 and to insert the consideration paid by Kwaku. When judgment creditor John F. Brooks later levied, Kwaku brought an interpleader in January 1887; MacLeod C.J. released the property after Kwaku produced the mortgage and testified to consideration. In 1894, Mr. Roberts accused Renner of fraudulent antedating and of misleading the court by not disclosing the false date; the Full Court found the second charge proved and ordered striking-off. The Board held the judgment debt created no charge, attachment occurred only in January 1887, and there was ample consideration, making the date immaterial. Antedating is reprehensible, but here did not defraud the creditor; both charges failed and Renner’s name was ordered restored.
[Delivered by Lord Watson.]
The Appellant was called to the English Bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn in April I883; and thereafter, in the year 1884, he was duly admitted as a barrister and solicitor of and enrolled as a practitioner before the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast Colony. The circumstances which led to the proceedings in which this Appeal is taken occurred in or about the months of September 1886, and February 1887, and may be shortly referred to here.
During the first of these periods, the Appellant was employed by one Joseph Wilson Sackey to prepare on his behalf as mortgagor, a mortgage of a dwelling-house and parcel of land in Elmina belonging to him, in favour of a Native Chief, Eccra Kwaku as mortgagee. Special instructions were given by Sackey that the consideration to be inserted in the mortgage deed was to be the sum of . advanced to him by the mortgagee on or before the date of the deed; and also that the deed was to be antedated, the date to be inserted being the 26th September 1884. The Appellant prepared the deed in accordance with those instructions, and sent it to his client; but he was not present at, and took no part in its execution, and its delivery to the mortgagee. There is no evidence in the proceedings before us, and forming the Record in the Court below, as to the precise date upon which the mortgage deed prepared by the Appellant was delivered by him to Sackey; but it is shown that its delivery and its execution must both have been subsequent to the 20th September 1886.
It now appears that, at the time when instructions were given for the preparation of the mortgage, one John F. Brooks had obtained a judgment against Sackey, the mortgagor, for the sum of . 3s., payable by instalments of . per quarter, the first instalment being payable on the 20th December 1886. The judgment creditor became entitled to recover that debt by attachment and sale of the debtor's property real or personal.
Mr. Brooks did not take any steps to levy his debt from the property included in the mortgage to Eccra Kwaku until January 1887. After that fact came to his knowledge Eccra Kwaku, on the 29th January I887, instituted an interpleader suit, with the object of having the property mortgaged to him released from the attachment; and, in that proceeding, the Appellant acted as his solicitor. The case went to trial before Chief Justice MacLeod, when the mortgagee gave evidence in his own favour, being examined by the Appellant