STOP SEEING INTRUSIVE ADS, & HAVE PREMIUM FEATURES? Stop seeing intrusive ads and have a smoother reading experience, once you sign up on Judicial Poetry. Sign up now!

PARTIES IN NOTICE OF APPEAL SHOULD BE SAME IN AN APPLICATION SUBSEQUENTLY BROUGHT ON SAME SUIT

Reach more audience. Place advert here.

The Notice of Appeal which is the foundation of this application has four parties as respondents, whereas the application has only three parties, exclusive of the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court who is the 4th respondent in the Notice of Appeal. The Chief Registrar shouldn’t have been excluded/omitted from the application before us, as, if the appeal is supposed to involve the Chief Registrar, then the Chief Registrar is supposed to be involved in the application. The parties in both processes should be the same, and none should be excluded unless it has been formerly withdrawn. In this respect I endorse the submission of Chief Olanipekun. SAN on the issue of the parties, and I agree that the applicant cannot change the parties in the notice of appeal in this application.

— A.M. Muktar, JSC. Shinning Star Nig. Ltd. v. AKS Steel Nigeria Ltd. (2011) – SC. 101/2010

Was this dictum helpful?

SHARE ON

notice of appeal, parties

PERSONAL SERVICE OF A NOTICE OF APPEAL IS A REQUIREMENT OF LAW

With profound respect to the erudite senior counsel, this cannot be. As this Court explained, in a most magisterial manner, the term irregularity in respect of procedure, is often construed to denote something that does not fundamentally taint or besmirch a procedure as to render it invalid or a nullity. In other words, an irregularity is deemed to be curable. However, personal service of an originating process, like a Notice of Appeal, is a fundamental requirement of the law.

– C.C. Nweze JSC. Odey v. Alaga (2021) – SC.9/2021

Was this dictum helpful?

WHO IS AN INTERESTED PARTY IN A LITIGATION

✓ Nigerian Social Insurance Trust v. Klifco Nigeria Ltd (2010)LPELR 22 23 Paras CE as follows: ‘As regards the phrase “a person interested “I agree with the respondent that the phrase has been examined in the case of Evan v. Noble (1949) 1 KB 222 at 225 where a person not interested in the outcome of action has been described as, a person who has no temptation to depart from the truth one side or the other, a person not swayed by personal interest but completely detached, judicial, impartial, independent’. In other words, it contemplates that the person must be detached, independent, and non-partisan and really not interested which way in the context the case goes. Normally, a person who is performing an act in official capacity cannot be a person interested under Section 91(3). I think the phrase a person interested’ ever moreso has been quite definitively put in the case of Holton v. Holton (1946) 2 AER 534 at 535 to mean a person who has pecuniary or other material interest in the result of the proceeding a person whose interest is affected by the result of the proceedings, and, therefore would have no temptation to pervert the truth to serve his personal or private ends. It does not mean an interest in the sense of intellectual observation or an interest purely due to sympathy. It means an interest in the legal sense, which imports something to be gained or lost.’

✓ In C.P.C. v. Ombugadu (2013) ALL FWLR (Pt.706) 406 at 472 473 Para H B when considering and determining who is a person interested under Section 91(3) of the Evidence Act 2011 held thus: “By the provision of Section 91(3), Evidence Act, a person interested is a person who has a pecuniary or other material interest and is affected by the result of the proceedings and therefore would have a temptation to pervert the truth to serve his personal or private ends. It does not mean an interest purely due to sympathy. It means an interest in the legal sense which imports something be gained or lost”.

✓ In fact, in its most recent decision in OYETOLA & ANOR v INEC & ORS (2023) LPELR-60392(SC), the Supreme Court, per Agim, JSC restated this position in the following words: “The other evidence adduced by the Appellant to prove their case is the expert analysis report prepared by PW1, who by his own admission is a member of the 2nd Appellant and had been a Special Assistant to the 1st Appellant and was engaged by the Appellants to establish the invalidity of the disputed results in Form EC8A for the 744 polling units. He testified further that “I made the report as directed by the Petitioners” and that “I am part of those who wrote the Petition”. By his own testimony he established that he was no an independent expert as he had an interest in the subject of his analysis and carried out the analysis from the conclusion that the results were invalid, to justify to support the contemplated election petition. It was an analysis from an answer and not from a question. Such a report is not the product of an independent, impartial, detached and professional analysis. He is clearly a person with the disposition or temptation to depart from the truth… The listing of the expert analysis report in the Petition among the documents to be relied on to prove the petition show it was made in anticipation or contemplation to be filed. The report having been made by PW1 as a person interested in the subject matter of the report when the petition was anticipated to establish that the election result was invalid is not admissible evidence.

Was this dictum helpful?

COURT WILL NOT REWRITE LEASE AGREEMENT FOR PARTIES

In doing so, the court should bear in mind that it has a responsibility not to re-write the Lease Agreement for the parties but simply to give effect to their intention as may be deduced from the language employed by them.

— Achike, JSC. Unilife v. Adeshigbin (2001) 4 NWLR (Pt.704) 609

Was this dictum helpful?

A COMPETENT NOTICE OF APPEAL

A competent notice of appeal is like having the right key for a particular door. The notice of appeal is the key to the door to this Court. Without the right key, any effort to gain entrance through the door is an exercise in futility. It is void and therefore a nullity. In the immortal words of Lord Denning, MR in McFoy vs UAC (1961) 3 ALL ER 169 @ 172: “If an act is void, then it is in law, a nullity. It is not only bad but incurably bad … And every proceeding which is founded on it is also bad and incurably bad. You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stay there. It will collapse.” See also: Madukolu Vs Nkemdilim (1962) 2 SCNLR 341; Skenconsult Vs Ukey (1981) 1 SC 6.

— K.M.O. Kekere-Ekun, JSC. Francis v. FRN (2020) – SC.810/2014

Was this dictum helpful?

FILING OF TWO NOTICES OF APPEAL IS NOT INCOMPETENT

The phrase “…after the notice of appeal” does not envisage multiple notices of appeal. There are similar provisions in the High Court and Court of Appeal Rules. In any case, it is an affront to logic and common sense to argue that an appellant can file more than one notice of appeal without indicating on which one he relies. Be that as it may, the mere fact of filing multiple notices of appeal does not render the appeal incompetent, Akuneziri v. Okenwa (2000) 12 SC (Pt. 11) 25, First Bank of Nigeria Plc. v. T.S.A. Industries Ltd. (2010) 4-7 SC (Pt. 1) 242. The 1st respondent read the appellants’ brief and made a decision to rely on one of the two notices filed within time. Not only was the 1st respondent not misled by the two notices of appeal, he did not disclose any injury he suffered for which he could seek redress. He cannot be heard to argue that another respondent elected to rely on the other notice of appeal.

— N.S. Ngwuta JSC. Yaki (Rtd) & Anor. V. Senator Bagudu & Ors. (SC.722/2015, 13 Nov 2015)

Was this dictum helpful?

PARTY CANNOT BE GRANTED WHAT HE DID NOT CLAIM

In this regard, the law is long and well settled that where a plaintiff claims, say, a declaration of title to land or whatever, and his claim is dismissed, it will be wrong to grant the declaration to the defendant if he did not ask for it by way of counter-claim. See: Ntiaro v. Akpam 3 N.L.R. 10; Abisi v. Ekwealor (1993) 6 NWLR (Pt. 302) 643 etc. As has been pointed out repeatedly by this and other courts, courts of law are no father Christmas and they must not grant to a party a relief which he has not sought or claimed or which is more than he has claimed. see: Ekpenyong v. Nyong (1975) 2 S.C. 71 at 81-82.

– Iguh JSC. Awoniyi v. AMORC (2000)

Was this dictum helpful?

No more related dictum to show.