Commercial Law Index

The appellant sought a declaration against the respondent that the Constitutional Court erred in refusing to award the appellant costs as a successful party and that it also based that refusal to award costs on incorrect principles.

The reference on taxation can be made to the Supreme Court on two grounds namely; on a matter of law or principle or on the ground that the bill of costs as taxed is in all circumstances manifestly excessive or manifestly inadequate.

The court held that there was no principle of law to the effect that the decision of the taxing officer must be subjected to the application of a ‘magic formula’ which when applied would result in a precise figure being arrived at in an almost automatic manner. Every case must be decided on its own merits and its peculiar circumstances, such as prolixity of the case in its preparation and any other peculiar complications in its presentation to the court. 

The court held that, due to the difference in cases, uniformity and consistency may at times be defeated. Moreover, other factors ought to be considered by the taxing master. The fund or person bearing the costs must be considered before setting the award. A balance has to be struck between keeping the costs of litigation as reasonable as possible so as not to restrict access to court to only the wealthy, and the need to allow reasonable level of remuneration of advocates to attract worthy recruits to the profession.

In the result, the application was upheld.
 

The court considered a review application arising from an application surrounding a facilitation agreement between the parties. 

A receiver was appointed and it was alleged that there was a conflict of interest. The first respondent was appointed, but the directors refused to hand over the management of the company. An order was sought, to declare the duties and functions of the receiver. 

The court held that it was the receiver’s duty to make returns and accounts, to uphold his fiduciary duty to the company and investigate the causes of the company’s failure.  Therefore, the receiver was expected to take charge of the business. 

It was found that there was nothing prohibiting the appointment of a receiver from the same firm representing the creditor. The applicant argued that it was an error on the face of it to appoint the advocate of the second respondent as the Receiver as it was a conflict of interest.  

The court found that an error on the face of it must be an error on a substantial point of law staring one in the face, leaving one with no other options. Whereas, an error which has to be established by a process of reasoning, cannot be said to be an error on the face of the record. 

The court found that the applicant was asking the court to review something that was never an issue in the original application. 

The court held that to bring an application for review on a prayer which did not form part of the original application is improper and would cause an injustice. 

Application dismissed. 
 

This is an application to annul the consent order that was executed between the respondents and the cancellation of the third respondent’s title. The appeal was issued by the registrar against the decision of a judge who dismissed an application by the first respondent against the second and third respondents. The appeal is premised on grounds that the registrar had no jurisdiction not issue the orders and the consent is illegal.

The matter involved a claim by the applicant against the defendant’s conduct of unlawfully blocking and deducting monies from his salary account.

First, was whether the court, as a commercial division, had jurisdiction over the matter. The court reasoned that as it dealt with crediting and debiting of the applicant’s account, the matter therefore lay in the ambit of a banker customer relationship. The court was therefore had jurisdiction as it was a commercial matter. 

Next, was whether the applicant’s account had been unlawfully deducted and consequently who was liable, considering that the defendant had assumed the obligations of Crane Bank, the applicant’s original employer. The court found there was evidence that the applicant’s account had been credited with less money than he was earning for some time.

On the issue of liability, the court reasoned that despite the contractual exemption of liability upon assumption of Crane’s obligations by the defendant, the Employment Act required the employment obligations to transfer to the defendant as a matter of law. The effect was that the defendant was liable for the unlawful deductions.

Finally, the court dealt with the question of damages. The court used its discretion to put the plaintiff in the position he would have been but for the wrong, as required by law. The court, using its discretion, also awarded interest to the applicant on the basis that applicant had been deprived from own monies. It however denied the claim for exemplary damages as it could not establish malice, outrage or impunity in the conduct of the defendant. 
 

Civil Procedure — Limitation of actions — Disability as legal incapacity — Disability as inability — suit for failure of government in its constitutional duty and undertaking to provide security by way of armed escorts during the plaintiff's execution of road construction — Action statute barred.

This case considers the adducing of fresh evidence on appeal. The respondent had claimed title to a certain land. Dissatisfied by the High Court judgment; the appellants appealed to the Court of Appeal. On appeal they sought an order granting them leave to adduce new evidence. The reasons being:         
1.  that this evidence showed that the disputed land had been acquired by the government and that the respondent lacked the required locus standi to institute this case;
2.  in an action to protect acquired land, only the Attorney-General has the requisite standing to sue and the respondent can only sue if he had been granted leave to do so by the Attorney-General; and
3. that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to have heard the case.

The respondent contended that the documents now sought to be used as additional evidence are not of such a nature that would affect the jurisdiction of the court and that it was the appellants' choice then not to tender these documents.

This court agreed with the counsel for the appellants. In the judgment, the court found the documents entailing strong points which would likely affect the jurisdiction of the trial court.

Additionally, the issue of jurisdiction was found to be fundamental and could be raised at any stage of the proceedings (even for the first time in this court).

Thus, in the interest of justice. these documents could be tendered on appeal as fresh evidence.
 

This appeal is in relation to whether an order of non-suit was the appropriate order. The appeal originated from an institution of an action against the respondents. The action was centred around an order for damages, due to an unlawful dismissal from employment. The respondent disputed these claims as they contended that the contract was lawfully terminated. 

The courts below granted judgment in favour of the appellant. However, in the Court of Appeal a piece of evidence belonging to the appellant was expunged on the ground that those pleadings did not constitute evidence. An order of non-suit was made by the Court of Appeal. It is that order of non-suit that gave rise to this appeal at the Supreme Court.

The appellant submitted that there was a breach of the fundamental right to fair hearing as the non-suit was instituted before hearing. Furthermore, he claimed to have satisfactorily proved his case for damages on the now expunged evidence and that this was therefore not a case in which an order of non-suit ought to have been made.

This court resolved this issue in the appellant's favour and the judgment of the Court of Appeal was set aside. Accordingly, this appeal was remitted to the Court of Appeal to be heard by a different panel.
 

The subject matter of this appeal was an allegedly defamatory letter published by the appellant bank, relating to the respondent. This letter was compiled by the second appellant who was the bank’s employee, directed to the respondent’s employer. The contents related the respondent's alleged indebtedness to the bank and sought their cooperation in recovering the debt. It later transpired that this letter ought to not have been sent, as there was in fact no debt as alleged. 

The respondent then claimed that the letter was defamatory and instituted a claim for damages. The appellants counterclaimed and raised the defence of qualified privilege. The courts below entered judgments in favour of the respondent and awarded damages in his favour. 

The question on appeal is whether the court below was right to have held that the defence of qualified privilege did not avail the appellants. 

The appellants went to great lengths to show that the second appellant and the respondent had never met before the defamatory letter was written and argued that this fact rebutted the inference of actual malice. The respondent claimed that the second appellant was motivated by malice in writing the letter.

This court found that the finding of the court below that the appellants were actuated by malice was erroneous. On the basis that the pleading lacks malice as a requirement, the appeal was upheld.  

A preliminary objection by the respondent set out to expose the lack of due diligence on the part of the appellant. The respondent’s claim was that the appellant’s records were fundamentally defective and incompetent. This was because the records of the appellant were issued signed by "N. Nwanodi & Co," (which is not a legal practitioner recognized by law in Nigeria) instead of counsel’s actual name.

The counsel for appellant stated that the habit of legal practitioners' merely signing court processes in their firm's name without indicating their actual name has been allowed by this court in many cases. Thus, it was an over-adherence to technicality to annul the process improperly filed.

The respondent sought this court to employ purposive interpretation of sections 2(1) and 24 of the Legal Practitioners Act (the act) that would lead to the conclusion that the record filed was indeed fundamentally defective.

This court upheld the preliminary objection of the respondent. It held that the appellant's' notice of appeal was fundamentally defective. It concluded that the purpose of sections 2(1) and 24 of the act was to ensure accountability on the part of a legal practitioner who signs court processes.

This case concerned the appellant's entitlement to notice of meeting prior to removal as company director. The appellant claimed relief for a declaration that his purported dismissal was a repudiatory breach of his contract of employment and that he was denied the right to a notice meeting pursuant to sections 236, 262 and 266 of Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA).

The counsel for the respondent contended that against the background of the appellant's contention the trial court had no jurisdiction to entertain the complaint. Given the above claim of the appellant, he should have approached the Federal High Court for the resolution of his complaint of the breaches and not the trial court.

This court held that the dismissal of the appellant was not lawful because of lack of due process. However, the trial court below lacked jurisdiction and since the trial court lacked the jurisdiction to enter the matter, the lower court, equally, lacked the jurisdiction to deal with the appeal before it. Thus, the appeal was found to be unmeritorious and was struck out for want of jurisdiction.

The respondent sued the appellant for default of payment in respect of loans granted to the appellant by the respondent in the course of the appellant’s employment.

The appellant claimed that liability in respect of the car loan should not have been determined solely by reference to the formal contract. Instead, the court should have had regard to extrinsic evidence.  

The appellant further claimed that the summary judgment granted against him by the court below was erroneously made as there was a plausible dispute between the parties for which leave should have been granted to the appellant to defend the action. The respondent contended that the factual situation representing the appellant's defence did not constitute a good defence on the merit to the claim of the respondent. This court agreed with the respondent.

The appellant submitted that his continued retention in the employment of the respondent was a condition precedent to his repayment of the loans and his employment having been terminated, the enforcement of the personal loans had been frustrated. This court held that this stance was not sustainable because the contracts of employment and personal loans between the parties were two distinct contracts and their duration not co-existent. Thus, the appeal was dismissed.

This was an appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal to strike out the appellant’s appeal on the ground that it only paid a fraction of the filing fee. 

The respondents had filled an action claiming monetary compensation for a diesel spill from the appellant's facility which polluted the respondents’ water. The appellant admitted the spillage and judgment was passed against it. On appeal it paid N200 instead of N5000 to file documents into the registry. The respondents urged the court to dismiss the appeal on the basis of this and other irregularities. The appeal arose from an attempt by the appellant to regularise the payment of fees prior to the filing of the appeal but this was dismissed as incompetent due to payment of inadequate fees.
 
The court considered whether the lower court was right to strike out the appeal. It observed that a discretionary decision based on a principle that inadequate filing fees was fatal to an appeal was a wrong exercise of discretion. The court differentiated non-payment of fees from payment of inadequate fees. It held that a court of law could not allow the provisions of an enactment to be read in a way that would deny citizens access to court, thereby denying a litigant access to justice. It found that the lower court’s striking out of the appeal denied the appellant access to court.

Accordingly, the appeal was upheld and the appellant ordered to pay the correct fees.

The underlying dispute between the parties related to an entitlement of the appellants to a proper statement of account by the respondents. The question at issue was whether the order of the high court was appealable and if so, whether the appellants had made out a case for a two-state judicially controlled procedure, dealing first with the adequacy and second with the accuracy of the accounts.

In making a decision the court was guided by the principle that a judgment or order has three attributes, first, the decision made must be final in effect and not susceptible of alteration by the court of first instance; second, it must be definite of the rights of the parties; and third, it must have the effect of disposing of at least a substantial portion of the relief claimed in the main proceedings. The principles however are neither exhaustive nor cast in stone. An order may not possess all three attributes, but will nonetheless be appealable if it has final jurisdictional effect.

The court held that the order of the court a quo had effectively precluded the appellants from contesting the adequacy of the accounts, an issue that had been a bone of contention between the parties thus making the decision of the court a quo appealable. In the result, the appeal succeeded.