Wakilii

Interfreight Forwarders (L') Limited v East African Development Bank (Civil Appeal No. 33 of 1992)

Supreme Court · [1993] UGSC 52 · 1993 Appeal Allowed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Civil appeal from a High Court judgment on a claim for damage to a motor vehicle in the course of carriage
Decision
Appeal allowed; High Court judgment set aside and the respondent's plaint dismissed with costs to the appellant

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Cited — treatment unverified cited in 2 (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 Supreme Court considered whether the trial judge could found liability on a cause of action — common carrier strict liability — that was neither pleaded nor among the framed issues, and whether the negligence finding was supported by the evidence. Held: a party is bound by its pleadings and cannot succeed on an unpleaded case; common carrier liability had not been pleaded, so the trial judge erred in relying on it. The only evidence of how the accident happened, that of the appellant's driver, offered a plausible non-negligent explanation consistent with an inevitable accident and did not support a finding of negligence. Appeal allowed, the High Court judgment set aside, and the plaint dismissed with costs to the appellant.

Facts

The respondent bank purchased a new Volvo car and engaged the appellant to clear it from Mombasa and transport it to Kampala. While the car was being carried on a vehicle carrier, the carrier's driver, faced with an oncoming bus on a rough road, swerved to the left and braked suddenly to avoid a collision, causing the Volvo and two other cars to be thrown off the carrier. The Volvo was damaged beyond repair. The respondent sued for breach of contract and negligence, claiming the price or replacement value of the car. The appellant denied the alleged contract and negligence, contended the goods were carried at the owner's risk, and argued that the accident was inevitable. The contract had been arranged by a letter authorising the appellant to clear and forward the car; the plaint did not allege that the appellant was a common carrier.

Issues

  1. Whether the trial judge erred in founding liability on a common carrier's strict liability when that cause of action was neither pleaded nor among the framed issues.
  2. Whether the evidence supported a finding that the accident was caused by the negligence of the appellant's driver rather than being an inevitable accident.
  3. Whether the trial court applied wrong principles in assessing damages and in awarding them in foreign currency.
  4. Whether the award of interest at 36% was excessive, arbitrary or unjustified.
  5. Whether the decree, alleged to conflict with the judgment and to have been prepared without counsel's approval, could be challenged on appeal to this Court.

Orders

  • Appeal allowed.
  • Judgment of the High Court set aside.
  • Plaint of the respondent dismissed.
  • Costs of the suit and of the appeal awarded to the appellant.

Key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Pleadings — Party bound by case as pleaded and as covered by framed issues
A party is bound to prove the case as alleged in its pleadings and as covered by the issues framed, and will not be permitted to succeed on a case not set up in its pleadings nor included in the issues, except by amendment of the pleadings.
Civil Procedure — Pleadings — Function and purpose
Pleadings serve to define with clarity and precision the real matters in controversy, to inform each party of the opposing case, and to confine the issues on which the court is called to adjudicate at trial.
Contract Law — Carriage of Goods — Common carrier — Strict liability must be pleaded
Liability as a common carrier, which imposes a warranty of safe delivery of goods entrusted, must be specifically pleaded; it cannot be established on evidence alone where the contract was pleaded and appears to be an ordinary one.
Tort Law — Negligence — Defence of inevitable accident — Burden of proof
To establish the defence of inevitable accident the defendant must prove an event over which he had no control and whose effect could not have been avoided by the exercise of care and skill; the burden lies on the party setting up the defence and it cannot succeed where the risk was reasonably foreseeable.
Tort Law — Negligence — Proof — Inference from the only available evidence
Where the sole evidence of how an accident occurred is that of the defendant's driver and it offers a plausible explanation consistent with a non-negligent cause, a finding of negligence against the driver is not supported.
Damages & Quantum — Measure of damages and award in foreign currency
Where a contract does not specify the currency of damages, damages are awarded in the currency that most truly expresses the plaintiff's loss; for goods destroyed the measure is their market value, and recoverable consequential expenses may be added.
Evidence — Burden of proof — Section 105 Evidence Act does not dispense with pleading
Section 105 of the Evidence Act, which places the burden of proving a fact especially within a person's knowledge on that person, does not relieve a party of the obligation to plead the case it seeks to prove.

Legislation cited (8)

  • Evidence Act (Cap. 43) s.105
  • Civil Procedure Rules Order 6 rule 1
  • Civil Procedure Rules Order 6 rule 2
  • Civil Procedure Rules Order 18 rule 6
  • Civil Procedure Rules Order 18 rule 7
  • Civil Procedure Rules Order 46 rule 8
  • Civil Procedure Act (Cap. 65) s.26(2)
  • Civil Procedure Act (Cap. 65) s.26(3)

Cases cited (9)

  • Plotti v The Acacia Co. Ltd (1959) E.A. 248
  • Sagarmull v Gaistaun (1930) A.I.R. P.C. 205
  • Miliangos v George Frank (Textiles) Ltd [1975] 3 All E.R. 801 (HL)
  • Jugoslavenska ... 1 All E.R 498 (C.A.)
  • Manners v Pearson (1898) 1 Ch. 581
  • Continental Agencies vs. A.C. Berril & Co (1971)
  • The Despina R [1971] 1 All E.R. 421
  • Liesbosch Dredger v S.S. Edison [1933] A.C. 440
  • Moore v D.E.R. Ltd [1971] 1 W.L.R. 1476
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.