Union Bank of Nigeria Plc V. Charles Olusola Toyinbo (2008)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

IGNATIUS IGWE AGUBE J.C.A.

In the High Court of Justice Ekiti State, in the Ado Ekiti Judicial Division, before Honourable Justice C. Akintayo, the Plaintiff (now Respondent/Cross-Appellant) instituted an action by way of writ of summons and in both his said writ and statement of claim sought for the following Reliefs;-

(1) A Declaration that the termination of the Plaintiff’s appointment vide a letter dated 8th day of January, 2001 is illegal unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect whatsoever.

(2) N50, 000, 00 (Fifty Million Naira) only special and general damages.

(3) Costs of this action

Issues were joined by the Defendant who filed her statement of Defence and counter-claim which was later amended. See pages 1-38 of the Records for details of the processes filed by the parties. In the course of trial the plaintiff testified for himself called no witness and tendered Exhibits A-Q, while the Defendant called a sole witness (one Saibu Oladadpo Saliu) the Debt Recovery Officer of the Defendant Bank and tendered Exhibits R-T in defence of the Plaintiffs claim and in proof of her counter-claim.

At the conclusion of hearing the Court granted all the Reliefs sought by the plaintiff and in consequence made the following orders:-

“1. It is hereby declared that the defendant’s letter dated 8th day of January, 2001, which purported to terminate the appointment of the plaintiff from services of the defendant, is illegal and wrongful.

“21 award a sum of N11, 682,738.00 to the plaintiff against the defendant representing loss of earnings for the year 2001-2020.

“3. I award a sum of N8, 000.000.00 to the plaintiff against the Defendant as general damages.

“4. I assess the cost of this action at N350, 000.00 in favour of the Plaintiff.

“5. The plaintiff shall pay the sum of N69, 407.20 to the plaintiff (read Defendant/counter claimant) by way of counter claim”

Aggrieved by the decision of the lower Court, the plaintiff (now Respondent) filed a notice of Appeal dated 21st day of June, 2006 which was withdrawn by a notice dated and filed the 26th day of June, 2006 and replaced with another Notice of Appeal of the same date from the Chambers of Kayode Ogunleye & Co.

The Appellant subsequently engaged the services of “Bola Ige & Co who filed a separate Notice of Appeal dated 7th day of September, 2006 and filed same date.