Where any person having an interest may make himself a party to a suit by intervening and knowing what was passing, was content to stand by and see his battle fought by somebody else in the same interest, he should be bound by the result, and not be allowed to reopen the case.
– Iguh, JSC. Clay v. Aina (1997)
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Before a judgment of a court can qualify as an estoppel per rem judicata and in order to bind a party; the following conditions must be satisfied: a) The judgment must be valid and subsisting; b) the parties in that judgment must be the same as the parties (either by themselves or their privies) in the subsequent proceedings; c) the subject-matter must be the same; and d) the issue or cause (in issue estoppel or cause of action estoppel as the case may be decided in the earlier proceedings must have arisen again in the later proceedings.
— Adeyemo v. Ida & Ors. (1998) – CA/1/6/92
Lord Denning, M.R., in D & C Builders Ltd. v. Rees (1965) 3 All ER 837 at 840: “In point of law, payment of a lesser sum, whether by cash or cheque, is no discharge of a greater sum. This doctrine of the common law has come under heavy fire. It was ridiculed by Sir George Jessel, MR., in Couldery v. Bartrum (1881) 19 Ch. D. 394 at p. 399. It was held to be mistaken by Lord Blackburn in Foakes v. Beer (1884) 9 App. Cas at p. 622. It was condemned by the Law Revision Committee in their Sixth Interim Report (Cmnd 5449) paragraph 20 and 22. But a remedy has been found. Equity has stretched out a merciful hand to help the debtor. The courts have invoked the broad principle stated by Lord Cairns L.C., in Hughes v. Metropolitan Railway Co. (1877) 2 App. Cas 439 at p. 448: ‘…….it is the first principle upon which all courts of equity proceed if parties, who have entered into definite and distinct terms involving certain legal results………afterwards by their own act, or with their own consent, enter upon a course of negotiation which has the effect of leading one of the parties to suppose that the strict rights arising under the contract will not be enforced, or will be kept in suspense, or held in abeyance, that the person who otherwise might have enforced those rights will not be allowed to enforce them where it would be inequitable, having regard to the dealings which have taken place between the parties.’ It is worth noting that the principle may be applied, not only so as to suspend strict legal rights, but also so as to preclude the enforcement of them. This principle has been applied to cases where a creditor agrees to accept a lesser sum in discharge of a greater. So much so that we can now say that, when a creditor and a debtor enter on a course of negotiation, which leads the debtor to suppose that, on payment of the lesser sum, the creditor will not enforce payment of the balance, and on the faith thereof the debtor pays the lesser sum and the creditor accepts it as satisfaction; then the creditor will not be allowed to enforce payment of the balance when it would be inequitable to do so. In applying this principle, however, we must note the qualification. The creditor is barred from his legal rights only when it would be inequitable for him to insist on them. Where there has been a true accord, under which the creditor voluntarily agrees to accept a lesser sum in satisfaction, and the debtor acts on that accord by paying the lesser sum and the creditor accepts it, then is is inequitable for the creditor afterwards to insist on the balance.”
It is trite law in Nigeria on the authorities I have earlier cited in this judgment that the defence of estoppel, whether founded on admissions or not, must be pleaded and, if it has not been pleaded, any evidence tending to establish it goes to no issue and the evidence ought to be rejected: Ogboda v. Adulugha (1971) 1 All N.L.R. 86. This is a general statement of the law. Let us see if the High Court of Lagos (Civil Procedure) Rules, 1972, which is the applicable law, make provision for an exception.
— M. Bello, JSC. Salawu Ajide V. Kadiri Kelani (SC.76/1984, 29 Nov 1985)
Issue estoppel applies when parties or their privies are prevented in a subsequent suit from relitigating an issue which had earlier on been adjudicated upon by a court of competent jurisdiction and which same issue comes incidentally in question in any subsequent proceedings. In other words issue estoppel applies to preclude a party from contending the contrary or opposite of any specific point which having once been distinctly put in issue has with certainty and solemnity been determined against him.
– Mohammed JCA. Rufukka v. Kurfi (1996)
By operation of the rule of estoppel a man is not allowed to blow hot and cold, to affirm at one time and deny at the other, or, as it is said, to approbate and reprobate. He cannot be allowed to mislead another person into believing in a state of affairs and then turning round to say to that person’s disadvantage that the state of affairs which he had represented does not exist at all or as represented by him.
– Nnaemeka-agu, JSC. Ude v. Nwara (1993)
Otto v. Mabamije (2004) 17 NWLR (Pt. 903) page 489 at page 504, (2005) All FWLR (Pt. 262) 597, this court held as follows:- “By virtue of section 51 of the Evidence Act, when one person by his declaration, act or omission, intentionally caused or permitted another person to believe a thing to be true and to act on such belief, neither he nor his representatives in interest shall be allowed in any proceeding between himself and such representative in interest to deny the truth of that thing.”
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