Leaders & Company Ltd. & Anor V. Mrs. A. S. Kusamotu (2003)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

MUSA DATTIJO MUHAMMAD, J.C.A.

The respondent in this appeal felt aggrieved by allegations made against her by the appellants. The allegations were published in the 21st August, 1995 edition of “This Day” Newspaper.
She went to court in respect of the allegations as published.

Respondent claimed that the publication was libelous. The court, Lagos State High Court,  Justice Moni Fafiade presiding, upheld respondent’s claim. She was awarded N2.5 million damages against the appellants with N5,000.00 costs. Judgment was given ex parte the appellants. The judgment is dated 19th April, 1996. Execution of the judgment was levied on 28/6/96.

After withdrawing earlier applications for the same purpose, appellants in their application dated and filed 1st July, 1996, sought the lower court’s order to set aside the judgment obtained in their absence and the execution levied. Respondent’s counsel raised a preliminary objection to the hearing of this application. Mr. Oluyede drew the attention of the court in the process to some ‘contemptuous publications’ in the ‘This Day’ edition of 29th June and 4th July, 1996 describing the judgment of the court against the appellant as a ‘faulty judgment.’

Mr. Aluko for the appellants apologized and informed the court that a correction of the lapses observed by respondent’s counsel had in fact been carried in that day’s edition of the newspaper. That very day, 23rd July, 1996, the court ordered that “a conspicuous publication of the correction on the front page of the same newspaper should be made boldly correcting the publication described by the counsel as an error.”

The court declined entertaining the appellants’ application because appellants as further pointed out by respondent’s counsel had not paid the costs ordered against them. A condition which the court ordered appellants must comply with if they were to be heard.

Appellants eventually paid the cost.

Appellants renewed their bid to move their application on 17/9/96.

Respondent’s counsel renewed their objection to the hearing of same.

Counsel submitted to the court that the retraction contained in the 24th July, 1996 edition of the “This Day” Newspaper had not been in compliance with the courts order of 23rd July, 1996. The court upheld counsel objection and ordered the appellants to comply by publishing yet another retraction of the publications of 29/6/96,4/7/96 and 24/7/96.

Appellant’s first appeal dated 30/9/96 was against this order of the lower court dated 17/9/96 for a further retraction. The notice of this appeal contains three grounds.

By 10th October, 1996, to which date further proceedings were adjourned, appellants had not published the retraction they were ordered to. The court’s attention was drawn to this fact. The court ordered that appellants attend court on the date to which the matter was adjourned to show cause why they should not be held liable for contempt. The matter was adjourned to 16/10/96.

The appellants felt aggrieved by this order. They appealed against it. This 2nd appeal of theirs was filed on 18/10/96. A motion for the stay of the execution of the court’s order of 17/9/96 was said to have been filed.

On the 16/10/96, the court further ordered bench warrant for the arrest of appellants who neither attended court in compliance with the court’s order of 10/10/96, nor published a further retraction as commanded by the court on 17/9/96.