Wakilii

Abii Clinic & Laboratory Services Ltd t a Abii Clinic v Crown Health Care (U) Limited (Miscellaneous Application No. 1586 of 2022)

High Court · [2023] UGCOMMC 297 · 2023 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application to set aside ex parte judgment entered in underlying civil suit
Decision
Application to set aside ex parte judgment dismissed

Observed later treatment

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) Sequitur — Uganda’s citator · Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

No adverse treatment recorded Cited 1 time with no adverse treatment recorded; not yet tested on the merits. Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — a deterministic signal, not legal advice.

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

An application to set aside an ex parte judgment under Order 9 Rule 27 CPR requires proof that summons was not duly served or that the party was prevented by sufficient cause from appearing. The applicant failed to adduce evidence of sufficient cause for counsel's non-appearance and delayed five months before filing the application. The court held that no sufficient cause was established and the application was an afterthought, dismissing it with costs.

Outcome

Application to set aside ex parte judgment dismissed

Facts

The respondent instituted HCCS No. 789 of 2017 against the applicant. The matter was fixed for hearing on 21 June 2022. On that date, the applicant's counsel in personal conduct was allegedly indisposed and did not appear. A person claiming to be the applicant's legal representative appeared and sought an adjournment, but provided no compelling evidence. The trial judge ruled to proceed ex parte. The applicant did not file an application to set aside the ex parte order until 10 November 2022, five months after the ex parte ruling and three months after judgment was delivered on 29 August 2022 in favour of the plaintiff.

Issues

  1. Whether the application discloses any grounds for setting aside the ex parte judgment passed in Civil Suit No. 789 of 2017.

Orders

  • Application dismissed.
  • Costs awarded to the respondent.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Ex Parte Judgments — Setting Aside — Grounds Under Order 9 Rule 27 CPR
Under Order 9 Rule 27 of the Civil Procedure Rules, a defendant may apply to set aside an ex parte decree only on two grounds: that the summons had not been duly served, or that he was prevented by sufficient cause from appearing when the case came on for hearing.
Civil Procedure — Sufficient Cause — Evidentiary Burden — Counsel's Indisposition
Where a party relies on counsel's indisposition as sufficient cause for non-appearance, the party must adduce evidence such as a medical report to prove the allegation; failure to do so means no sufficient cause is established.
Civil Procedure — Setting Aside Ex Parte Judgment — Delay in Filing Application
A delay of five months in filing an application to set aside an ex parte order, especially where the application is filed three months after final judgment, indicates that the application is an afterthought and militates against a finding that the applicant was genuinely prevented by sufficient cause from appearing.

Legislation cited (5)

Cases cited (6)

  • Rosette Kizito v Administrator General and Others (Supreme Court Civil Application No. 9 of 1986)
  • Nicholas Roussos v Gulam Hussein Habib Virani & Another (Civil Appeal No. 9 of 1993)
  • Shabin Din v. Ram Parkash Anand (1955) 22 EACA 48
  • Zirabamuzaale v. Coruect (1962) E.A. 694
  • Patel v. Star Mineral Water and lce Factory (1961) E.A. 454
  • Mitha v. Ladak (1960) E.A. 1054

Cases citing this judgment (1)

How later Ugandan judgments in the Wakilii corpus have cited this case. Treatment labels come from Sequitur — Uganda’s citator — each backed by a verbatim span from the citing judgment, and are not an assertion that this case is, or is not, good law.

Full judgment

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The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Abii Clinic & Laboratory Services Ltd t a Abii Clinic v Crown Health Care (U) Limited (Miscellaneous Application No. 1586 of 2022) [2023] UGCommC 297 (23 November 2023)
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.