Seamarine International Limited & Ors V. Ayetoro Bay Agency & Ors (2015)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

AMINA ADAMU AUGIE, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

This Appeal has to do with a Fishing Trawler known as “BAY FISHER 1” that was registered under the 1st Respondent’s name. It was later re-registered under the name of the 1st Appellant, and became known as “OMOSEDE 1”. The 2nd and 3rd Respondents are the children of the late Stephen Oreofe Aruwayo-Authority, who was one of the proprietors of the 1st Respondent, and they filed a civil suit at the Federal High Court, wherein they alleged that after their father’s death, the Fishing Trawler was stolen from where it was berthed at their father’s Boat bay at Aiyetoro, Ilaje LGA in Ondo State, and they reported to the Police at the State C.I.D, Akure, Ondo State in 1997.

They also reported the matter to the Police at Zone 2, Onikan, Lagos, in February 1998, and to the Government Inspector of Shipping and Registrar of Ships at Apapa, Lagos, in case of any attempt to re-register the vessel.

They later heard that the said vessel was on 15/4/1998 re-registered under the Appellants’ name with its name now changed to OMOSEDE 1, and their claims as per the Writ of Summons dated 2/6/1998, are as follows –

(1) A DECLARATION pronouncing the Plaintiffs to be the lawful owners of the vessel originally known as “BAY FISHER 1” and registered as LA 240 under the name of the 1st Plaintiff now purportedly re-registered under the name MFV OMOSEDE 1 as belonging to the 1st Defendant.

(2) A DECLARATION that the Plaintiffs are entitled to possession of the said vessel.

(3) N50,000,000.00 damages against the 1st and 2nd Defendants for trespass to, detention and/or conversion of the said fishing vessel.

ALTERNATIVELY

A Reference to the Admiralty Registrar to assess the amount of such damages, costs and expenses.

(4) AN INJUNCTION restraining the 1st and 2nd Defendants, their servants, agents, privies, assigns or otherwise however from in any way interfering with the Plaintiffs’ right of ownership, possession and enjoyment of the vessel BAY FISHER now renamed MFV OMOSEDE 1.

The Appellants filed their Statement of Defence, which they later amended, and they averred that contrary to the said Respondents’ assertion that they “are the children of the late proprietor of the firm who have been granted Letters of Administration in respect of the estate”, the 1st Respondent is an association with 6 members, and they are merely 2 out of the 11 children of Chief S.O. Authority, the late Managing Director, who died on 19/12/1988, and the Letters of Administration “was obtained by misrepresentation and false declaration of oath”; that the vessel was allocated to its Members by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture under a scheme set up through Federal Department of Fisheries for assistance to Fishing Cooperative Societies, and when the 1st Respondent could no longer maintain the Fishing Trawler and could not pay off the balance owed to the ministry, it convened a meeting, where their late father was represented by his brother, Mr. Ojolo Aruwayo, who agreed with others to sell the vessel to anybody who could pay for it.

They further averred that when they could not get anybody to buy it, its Chairman, Oba C.E. Akinluwa “singularly and finally paid for it”, and in 1991, Oba C.E. Akinluwa sold the said vessel to one Mr. Jackson Homane, who sold it in 1995 to one Mr. Naphtan Ayeoyinbo, who finally in 1997, sold it to the Appellants; that the Police at Zone 2, Onikan, Lagos, investigated and concluded that the said vessel was not stolen but sold by its owners; that none of the other children of the Late Chief Aruwoye ever laid claim to the said Trawler as the exclusive property of theirs except the Respondents; and that they would contend as follows at the trial before the Court that –

(a) The first Plaintiff is no longer a legal entity and could not sue Plaintiff.

(b) The second and third Plaintiff has no locus standi to institute this action.