West African Examinations Council V. Joseph Ceylon Koroye (1977)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

BELLO, J.S.C. 

The respondent was a candidate at the 1969/70 G.C.E. examination conducted by the appellant. He was examined in History, Government and Economics but he failed to score pass grades in all the subjects. As might be expected, the respondent was not satisfied with the results. He sent a letter dated 27th July, 1970, to the appellant protesting against the grades awarded him as he thought the grades fell short of his brilliant performances at the examinations and requesting the appellants to permit him to see his answer scripts. To reinforce his protest and claim to high scholarship, he attached to that letter for “perusal and return” the following documents:

(1)        A complimentary personal letter of the Principal of Rapid Result College, London;

(2)        Marked answer scripts from Rapid Result College, London;

(3)        Marked answer scripts from School of Careers, Lagos;

He also enclosed therein a postage stamp worth 2/- for the return of the aforementioned documents.

Up to 31st January, 1972, the appellant did not return the documents to the respondent when his solicitor by a letter of that date demanded their return.  By their reply dated 18th March, 1972, the appellants informed the solicitor that they had sent the documents by post to the respondent under the cover of their letter dated 7th August, 1970, a photocopy of which they attached to the reply.

The foregoing are the events that precipitated the respondent to institute this case in the High Court of Lagos. His claim was for the return of his documents or their value in the sum of N3000 and damages for their conversion and for wrongfully depriving him of them despite repeated demands for their return. In the alternative the respondent claimed the sum of N3000 as damages for loss of the documents caused by the negligence of the appellants, their servants or agents.

The respondent testified at the hearing that he did not receive the purported letter dated 7th August, 1970, of the appellant or his documents allegedly enclosed therein; that the appellant did not return his documents despite his repeated demands for their return. No evidence was given by the appellant at the trial.

The learned trial Judge found that the respondent proved having entrusted the appellant with the documents in question and that they had failed to return the documents to him on his demand for their return. He also found that the appellants failed to prove that the documents had been lost without any fault on their part. He thereupon found the appellants liable in detinue. He gave judgment for the respondent for the return of the documents, or, in default, awarded him the sum of N400 as damages with costs assessed at N180.

It is pertinent for the purpose of this appeal to set out in full the portion of the judgment of the trial Judge showing how he arrived at the award. The portion reads:
“In an action of detinue the judgment is framed in the alternative for the redelivery of the goods or the payment of their value as assessed and damages for their detention. The assessment of the value of such goods should be made at the date of judgment; Rosenthal v. Alderton and Sons Ltd., (1946) 1 All ER 583 CA. The plaintiff in this action has demanded the sum of N3000 being value to him of the documents which were not returned by the defendant. He gave no indication as to how he arrived at such a figure, nor did he explain the basis of his valuation.  He also could not remember how much he paid for the correspondence courses in Lagos and London.  It seems to me, however, that the plaintiff has grossly exaggerated the value of the documents, and this could lead to an absurd situation whereby the plaintiff would get more money than his normal loss through detention of the documents. The learned counsel for the defendant, Mr. Alatishe has urged the court to dismiss plaintiff’s claim for N3000 because he said that the plaintiff has failed to give evidence upon matters on which the court could assess quantum of damages. But surely the difficulty in assessing pecuniary loss to the defendant is no good reason for its best to reach a fair assessment. The Supreme Court seem to support this approach in Messrs. Dumez (Nigeria) Ltd. v. Patrick Nwaka Ogboli (1972) 1 All NLR 241 when at pages 249 and 250 Lewis, JSC., said: –

‘It is axiomatic that special damages must be strictly proved and unlike general damages where, if the plaintiff establishes in principle his legal entitlement to them, a trial Judge must make his own assessment of the quantum of such general damages and on appeal to this court such general damages will only be altered if they were shown to be either manifestly too high or manifestly too low or awarded on a wrong principle ………………..’

Now, it must be remembered that this is not a case of valuable securities or goods with an ascertainable market price at a particular date, but concerns marked answers papers and testimonial and it is obvious that no one could attempt to do more than give an appropriate estimate of values of those documents.  It seems to me that having regard to the circumstances of this matter and the nature of the documents, a sum of N300.00 should adequately compensate the plaintiffs as the value of the documents and damages of N100 for their detention. Accordingly, judgment will be entered in favour of the plaintiff against the defendant for the return of the documents or, in default, payment of the sum of N400.00 with costs which will now be assessed.”

The only complaint against the judgment made on appeal relates to the award of N300 as being the value of the documents. It is contained in the only ground of appeal argued, which reads: