Cookie Policy
ANIN J.A.
The simple but important issue raised by this appeal is the quantum of damages that may be awarded in a detinue action to a buyer whose goods, bought and delivered to him in a credit sale contract, were subsequently wrongfully seized and resold by the seller at a time when about one-third of the purchase price had been paid by the buyer.
By his writ of summons the plaintiff claimed against the defendant:
“(a) the return of his Bedford 11⁄2 ton lorry No. AE 6079 or its value, i.e. ¢1,000.00 which the defendant wrongfully seized and detained; and
(b) ¢2,000.00 damages for loss of earnings incurred by the wrongful seizure and detention of the said Bedford lorry.”
The plaintiff’s case, which was accepted by the learned trial circuit judge as truthful, was that the defendant sold and delivered to him a second-hand passenger Bedford lorry, registration No. AE 6079 on 22 October, 1963 under an oral credit sale agreement. The agreed purchase price was ¢1,000.00, payable by monthly insta…