YUNGDONG INDUSTRIES v. RORO SERVICES & ORS

DR. SETH TWUM, J.S.C:-

On 22nd April 1994, the Plaintiff issued a Writ of Summons in the High Court, Accra, against the Defendants.

The Writ was indorsed with the following reliefs:-

(i) An order that the Plaintiffs’ goods in the custody of the Defendant be released to the Plaintiff.

(ii) An injunction restraining the Defendant from releasing the goods to anyone save the plaintiff.

(iii) Damages for wrongful detention of Plaintiff’s goods.

On 9th May 1994 the Court granted an application by a company called “SEO-KWANG GHANA LTD” to be joined as Co-Defendant. After the joinder, and with leave of the Court the Plaintiff filed an amended Writ of Summons and amended Statement of Claim. The Co-Defendant’s name was put on the Writ and the Statement of Claim. In the amended Statement of Claim, the Plaintiff averred inter alias as follows:

“(3) The Plaintiff in the course of his business, orders and

receives various goods for sale in Ghana from a number of Commercial Houses in Korea such as Ilseki Co. Ltd, Hanla Tyre Co Ltd and Leebo Products Ltd”.

“(4) During the course of 1993, Plaintiff placed orders and

received a number of Bills of Lading as the consignee of various goods from the said Commercial Houses.”

“(5) Plaintiff received the Bills of Lading on the goods from

Defendant, the carrier of same, and proceeded to clear same but due to financial difficulties succeeded in clearing some of the goods.

“(6) Subsequently when the Plaintiff was getting ready to clear

the remaining goods, he received information that Defendant was taking steps to amend the Bills of Lading, some of whom (?) had been misplaced, reconsigning same goods to the Co-Defendant.”.

“(11) Plaintiff contends that title to the goods have long passed

to him and nobody including the consignor could unilaterally reconsign the goods to a third party.

“(12) Plaintiff further contends that Co-Defendant is a stranger to the contract and is only been (?) misled by its misguided directors”.

On 3rd June 1994, the Defendants filed their statement of defence. The following paragraphs epitomize the substance of that defence.

“(4) Except that the Defendants admit having at the request of the consignor also known as the shipper of the goods, altered the relevant documents to replace the Plaintiff with the Co-Defendants as the new cosignees of the goods, paragraph 6 of the statement of claim is denied”.

“(10) In answer to Plaintiff’s claims generally, the Defendants say that as Carriers, the