Commercial Law Index

The plaintiff brought an action for breach of contract, for the defendant to pay the balance of the money paid by the plaintiff to the defendant in terms of their contract, and for interest on the amount.

The sourt held that on the evidence the defendant failed to deliver all the sugar within the seven weeks. The defendants did not adduce any evidence to the contrary, and the plaintiff was entitled to refund of the money paid for the sugar. The issue was whether general damages ought to be awarded in addition to interest on the outstanding amount.

Section 50 of the Sale of Goods Act provided that the remedy for wrongful non-delivery was damages. The measure was the estimated loss directly and naturally resulting in the ordinary course of events from the seller’s breach of contract. General damages will usually be awarded to place the plaintiff in as close a position as possible they would have been had the injury not occurred. Where interest is awarded for deprivation of monies to be paid, then general damages will not be awarded in addition to interest. The award of interest would place the plaintiff in its original position. 

The court held that the plaintiff did not adduce evidence of what loss was suffered to warrant an award of general damages. Interest was therefore awarded in lieu of general damages. 
 

The plaintiff was a registered owner of "Feathers" sanitary pads and claimed that the defendant imported "Featlhers" sanitary pads to be sold in Uganda. The court considered whether the plaintiff had exclusive use of a trademark which was infringed by importation and sale of a product.

The court held that s 36 of the Trade Marks Act grants exclusive use of a mark, which is infringed if a person who is not the owner of that mark uses it and causes confusion to average consumers. Civil proceedings may be instituted in terms of s 79(1). According to ss 79(3) and (4), the grant of an injunction does not affect a claim of damages, direct loss of sales and consequent loss of profits as well as the depreciation of the goodwill. Section 81(1) provides that one available form of relief is an account of profits to the plaintiff.

The court found that the plaintiff had exclusive use of the trademark. Despite the minor differences the goods were the same visually, conceptually, phonetically and belonged to the same class of goods. Therefore, concluded that the goods would likely confuse reasonable consumers. The defendants were guilty of infringement of the trademark by selling and importation of the sanitary pads. The plaintiff did not deal with the actual loss of sales, and no evidence was adduced to show that the counterfeit goods were circulating in Uganda.

The plaintiff's complaints were upheld. The court granted costs, ordered the destruction of the impounded goods, permanent injunction and general damages.

In this case the plaintiff claimed for special and general damages against the defendant for fraud and conversion of the plaintiff’s petroleum products. The case deals with fraud, where the party that benefited was not a bona fide purchaser of the products in this case. The court considered whether the defendant had good title for the products sold to him by the third party. Whether the defendant had a claim against the third party and whether there were remedies available to the parties.

In dealing with the first issue the court considered whether the defendant had acquired a better title than the mysterious seller had because the mysterious seller did not have any title to the good. The court applied the general rule in the latin maxim nemo dat quod non habet which was reflected in section 22 (1) of the Sale of Goods Act. The court found that the mysterious seller had no title to pass to the defendant and thus the defendant never acquired good title to the property. Therefore, the defendant was liable to make good any loss suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the conversion of the plaintiff’s goods.

In considering the second issue, the court found that the defendant had proved the transaction it had made with the third party and was therefore indemnified against the third party.

In considering the remedies available to the parties, the court held that general damages are compensatory to fulfil the principle of restitution in integrum which aims at restoring the plaintiff as nearly as possible to the position he or she would have been had the injury not occurred.

Therefore, the court upheld the plaintiff’s claim with costs.
The court also held that for the indemnity suit against the third party, the third party was to settle all liabilities ordered against the defendant less the amount against the defendant.