OKADJAKROM STOOL V. ATONKOR STOOL AND OTHERS.

JUDGEMENT

AMES J.A.

Everyone, whose work is in the courts of West Africa, is well accustomed to land cases in which the plaintiff claims a declaration of title to land. We are also well accustomed to a defendant pleading that the issue is res judicata. But I cannot remember any case in a my years in which the plaintiff did both these things at the same time. That is what has happened here. The plaintiff claimed a declaration of title to land and at the outset pleaded res judicata. This was tantamount to his saying:--

“I am claiming a declaration of title to this land but I need not prove my claim and you, the defendant, cannot make any defence, because the issue is res judicata, by reason of a 1940 case, in which you unsuccessfully sued me for a declaration that the boundary between us ran along my side of the disputed lands which you claimed to be your land.”

If this is the correct state of affairs, it seems to me that the plaintiff ought to be non-suited and mulcted in costs for havin…