Wakilii

Katatumba v Sulti (Civil Appeal No. 55 of 2004)

Court of Appeal · [2006] UGCA 64 · 2006 Appeal Dismissed; Cross-Appeal Allowed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Civil appeal and cross-appeal from a High Court judgment awarding special damages for damage to property
Decision
Appeal dismissed; cross-appeal allowed; special damages increased to UGX 141,000,000 with costs and interest

The full judgment

Read the complete, verbatim text of this judgment.

Sign in to read the full judgment
Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions — always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and allowed the respondent's cross-appeal. It upheld findings that the suit premises were vandalized and that the appellant, being in possession before handover, was responsible. The Court held that a wrongdoer cannot make captious objections to the methods by which the injured party repairs the injury, provided the injured party acts honestly and reasonably. There was no evidence of any increased value of the property to justify reducing the award; the evidence of the quantity surveyor and engineer supported the full cost of repairs. The Court substituted the trial award of UGX 70,500,000 with the full repair cost of UGX 141,000,000.

Facts

The respondent owned a house at Tank Hill, Muyenga, built before she was expelled from Uganda in 1972. The property was vested in the Departed Asians Custodian Board, and in 1993 the appellant bought it from Lawrence Senabulya. The respondent repossessed the property by certificate dated 20 February 1993 but could not take possession because the appellant claimed ownership. After winning High Court Civil Suit No. 614 of 1994, the respondent received vacant possession on 17 January 2000 in a vandalized state — doors, windows, floors, fittings, sinks and electrical installations had been ripped out. She sued for the cost of repairs as special damages. The quantity surveyor estimated repairs at UGX 107,167,788, and the engineer who carried out repairs charged UGX 141,000,000. The appellant claimed the premises had merely been under repair, but admitted that the photographs (Exh. P4) represented the state of the house when his family vacated it.

Issues

  1. Whether the trial judge was wrong to find that the suit premises were vandalized.
  2. Whether the trial judge was wrong to find that the appellant was responsible for the vandalization.
  3. Whether the trial judge adopted a wrong approach and used wrong principles in determining the award of damages.
  4. Whether the trial judge erred in awarding only 50% of the cost of repairs rather than the full cost claimed.

Orders

  • Cross appeal allowed.
  • Appeal dismissed.
  • Appellant/cross respondent to pay special damages of shs 141,000,000/= to the respondent/cross appellant.
  • Costs of the appeal in this Court and costs of the suit in the court below awarded to the respondent.
  • Award to bear interest at the court rate from the time of filing the suit until payment in full.

Key headnotes

Damages — Damage to Property — Measure as Cost of Repair or Replacement
Where property has been damaged, damages are measured to compensate the injured party for the loss, generally the cost of repair or replacement, so as to put the injured party in the position they would have been in had the injury not occurred.
Damages — Mitigation — Wrongdoer's Objections to Method of Repair
A court should be slow to countenance any attempt by a wrongdoer to make captious objections to the methods by which the injured party has sought to repair the injury; the injured party need only act honestly and reasonably, and is not required to use inferior materials to keep down expense to the wrongdoer's advantage.
Evidence — Failure to Cross-examine — Uncontroverted Testimony
Where a witness's evidence describing the state of property is not controverted in cross-examination and the contrary version is not put to the witnesses, an appellate court will not fault the trial judge's finding based on that uncontroverted evidence.
Damages — Special Damages — Proof by Expert Evidence
Special damages for the cost of repairs are sufficiently proved where a quantity surveyor estimates the cost and the engineer who carried out the repairs gives evidence of the actual cost incurred; an award reducing that proven figure on the basis of increased value requires evidence of such increase on the record.

Cases cited (2)

  • Harbutt's Plasticine Ltd v Wayne Tank and Pump Co Ltd [1970] 1 QB 447
  • Lodge Holes Colliery Co v Wednesbury Corporation [1908] AC 323
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.