Tushabe Chris v Co-operative Bank Ltd (Civil Application 8 of 2018)

Supreme Court · [2018] UGSC 34 · 2018 Application Granted ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Application before a single justice of the Supreme Court for enlargement of time to file a Notice of Appeal and for validation of a Notice of Appeal filed out of time.

Decision

Application granted; time enlarged and the Notice of Appeal filed on 16 March 2018 validated, with service on the respondent ordered within 7 days.

The full judgment

Read the complete, verbatim text of this judgment.

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 3 (treatment unverified) Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

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Holding

On an application before a single justice to enlarge time and validate a Notice of Appeal filed about 30 days out of time, the court held that the applicant had shown sufficient cause: illness and hospitalisation, his lawyers' failure to inform him of the judgment and outcome, and a lack of immediate means to instruct new counsel. The court declined to treat counsel's attendance at delivery of judgment as conclusively defeating the applicant's account, and emphasised its discretion to open the gates of justice in rare cases of late entry. Exercising its inherent powers in the interest of justice, the court enlarged time, validated the Notice of Appeal, and directed service within seven days.

Facts

The applicant, a Kasese businessman dealing in coffee, held an account with the respondent bank and obtained a loan of about Shs 600,000,000 in October 1998. He later discovered anomalies in the management of his loan account and, receiving no satisfactory explanation, sued the bank in the High Court for special and general damages and interest for wrongful entries. The trial court found the bank in breach of its fiduciary duty and awarded the applicant Shs 15,000,000 general damages, while upholding a consented counterclaim of Shs 96,096,307 with interest. The Court of Appeal upheld that interest award on 2 February 2018. The applicant, allegedly ill and hospitalised, said his lawyers did not inform him of the judgment or its outcome, and that on recovering he lacked means to instruct counsel promptly. He filed a Notice of Appeal about 30 days out of time and sought enlargement of time and validation. The respondent opposed, contending the illness was an afterthought, that counsel's representation was imputed to him, and that the intended appeal was not plausible.

Issues

Whether the applicant showed sufficient cause for failing to file his Notice of Appeal within the prescribed time.
Whether the time for filing the Notice of Appeal should be enlarged and the Notice of Appeal filed out of time validated.
Whether representation by counsel who attended the delivery of judgment is imputed to the applicant so as to defeat a claim of being unaware of the judgment.

Orders

The time within which the applicant had to appeal is enlarged to the extent that the Notice of Appeal filed on court record on 16 March 2018 is validated.
The applicant shall serve the respondent with the said Notice of Appeal within 7 days from delivery of this ruling.
The costs of this application shall abide the outcome of the main appeal.

Key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Enlargement of Time — Sufficient Cause

Sufficient cause for enlarging time to take a procedural step must relate to the applicant's inability or failure to take that particular step within the prescribed time; illness, a lawyer's failure to inform the litigant of the judgment, and lack of immediate means to instruct new counsel can together constitute sufficient cause.

Civil Procedure — Notice of Appeal — Validation of Documents Filed Out of Time

Where an applicant has on the court record complete documents in proper form save for their late filing, enlargement of time has the legal effect of validating them or excusing their late filing.

Civil Procedure — Discretion of the Court — Inherent Powers

The court has a discretion, to be exercised judiciously, to open the gates of justice and admit a late entrant in rare circumstances, and may exercise its inherent powers to grant relief where the interest of justice favours a hearing on the merits.

Civil Procedure — Representation by Counsel — Imputed Knowledge of Litigant

Although representation by counsel is ordinarily as good as attendance by the litigant, a court is not bound to treat counsel's attendance at the delivery of judgment as conclusively defeating a litigant's claim that he was unaware of the judgment, and counsel ought not to file a Notice of Appeal without proper instructions merely as a safety valve.

Legislation cited (4)

Rules of the Supreme Court r.2(2)
Rules of the Supreme Court r.5
Rules of the Supreme Court r.40(1)
Rules of the Supreme Court r.41(2)

Cases cited (7)

James Bwogi & Sons Enterprises Ltd v Kampala City Council and Kampala District Land Board (Civil Application No. 9 of 2017)
E.B. Nyakana and Sons Ltd v Beatrice Kobusingye & Others (Civil Miscellaneous Application No. 20 of 2017)
Sitenda Sebalu v Sam Njuba (Election Petition Appeal No. 26 of 2007)
Guliano Gariggio v Claudio Casadio (Civil Application No. 1 of 2013)
Crane Finance Co Ltd v Makerere Properties Ltd (Civil Appeal No. 1 of 2001)
Attorney General v N.M. Huda and Others (Civil Application No. 5 of 1988)
Mugo & Others v Wanjiru and Another [1970] EA 481

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.