Mwesigwa v Petro Uganda Limited (Civil Appeal 10 of 2019)

Supreme Court · [2022] UGSC 30 · 2022 Decree Settled (Appeal Dismissed) ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Settlement of the form of the decree by the Supreme Court under Rule 34(2) of the Supreme Court Rules, the parties having failed to agree on the draft order extracted from the appeal judgment

Decision

Decree settled by the Court; the omitted trial court orders included and the appeal stands dismissed with costs

The full judgment

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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

On a reference to settle the form of the decree under Rule 34(2) of the Supreme Court Rules, the parties having disagreed on competing draft decrees, the Court held that the words 'for avoidance of doubt' in its judgment were not intended to vary or omit the trial court orders confirmed by the Court of Appeal and upheld on appeal. The two orders inadvertently omitted at pages 25 and 26 of the judgment formed part of the decision and were included. As the appellant lost on all six grounds, the trial, appellate and Supreme Court judgments must be read together. Costs follow the event under section 27 of the Civil Procedure Act, so costs to the respondent were properly inserted.

Facts

Following the Supreme Court's judgment in Civil Appeal No. 10 of 2019 dismissing the appellant's appeal, counsel for the successful respondent (judgment creditor) extracted a draft decree and sent it to the appellant's counsel for approval. The appellant's counsel (judgment debtor) returned a varied version of the decree omitting two High Court orders — UGX 10,055,768 for unpaid fuel on the DFCU account and UGX 54,908,251 for unutilized advance rent — that had been decreed by the trial judge and confirmed by both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The parties failed to agree on the form of the order. The respondent's counsel wrote to the Registrar requesting that the parties be summoned under Rule 34(2) of the Supreme Court Rules to settle the decree. On 8 June 2022 both parties appeared and made oral submissions on whether the two omitted orders, which the Court found had been inadvertently left out at pages 25 and 26 of the judgment, formed part of the decision.

Issues

Whether the two High Court orders confirmed by the Court of Appeal and upheld by the Supreme Court, but inadvertently omitted from the extracted draft decree, should be included in the decree.
Whether the words 'for avoidance of doubt' in the appeal judgment were intended to vary the trial court orders.

Orders

Appeal dismissed with costs of the Supreme Court and the courts below.
The orders made by the trial court as confirmed by the Court of Appeal are upheld.
The appellant pays the respondent UGX 471,036,120 in special damages for unpaid fuel supplies.
The appellant pays the respondent UGX 10,055,768 in special damages for unpaid fuel on the DFCU account.
The appellant pays the respondent UGX 54,908,251 in special damages for unutilized advance rent.
The appellant returns the outstanding equipment of the respondent.
The appellant pays nominal damages for breach of contract of UGX 2,000,000.
Interest of 21% per annum from 27th August 2008 on the special damages until payment in full.
Interest of 8% per annum on the nominal damages from the date of the High Court judgment until payment in full.
The appellant pays two-thirds of the costs of the High Court on account of failure to provide written agreements.

Key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Settlement of Decree — Rule 34(2) Supreme Court Rules — Court's power to settle the form of an order on party disagreement

Where parties cannot agree on the form of an order extracted from a judgment, the form of the order shall be settled by the presiding judge or a judge who sat at the hearing, after giving all parties an opportunity to be heard, under Rule 34(2)(c) of the Supreme Court Rules.

Civil Procedure — Extraction of Decree — Decree must reflect the whole judgment read together with the lower court orders upheld

A decree must give effect to all the orders embodied in the decision; where an appellate court upholds the trial court orders as confirmed by an intermediate court, the judgments must be read together and a draft decree omitting upheld orders does not accurately reflect the decision.

Civil Procedure — Costs — Costs follow the event under section 27 of the Civil Procedure Act

Costs follow the event under section 27 of the Civil Procedure Act, and where the respondent is the successful party an award of costs to the respondent is properly included in the decree.

Legislation cited (2)

Supreme Court Rules r.34(2)
Civil Procedure Act s.27

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.