Wakilii

Komuhangi Adah and Another v Teriyetu Apollo and Another (Miscellaneous Application 0018 of 2024)

High Court · [2025] UGHC 1418 · 2025 Application Granted AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application to amend plaint and witness statements in underlying civil suit arising from estate dispute
Decision
Application allowed with leave granted to amend plaint within 14 days

Observed later treatment

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 2 (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 2 times 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

Held that leave to amend the plaint should be granted where the amendment seeks to rectify an error in describing the owner of the suit land from the applicants' mother to their father, as the causes of action for ownership and trespass remain unchanged and the applicants must still prove their rights under the estate. The amendment does not prejudice the respondents and denying it would result in multiplicity of suits.

Outcome

Application allowed with leave granted to amend plaint within 14 days

Facts

The applicants are daughters of the late Golden Bwinazi who died in 1991. Upon his death, their mother Jovia Bwinazi took charge of the estate but never obtained letters of administration. Their mother died in 2020 leaving the estate intact and undistributed. After their mother's death, the respondents purported to distribute part of the estate without following proper procedure and without giving the applicants any share. The applicants filed a civil suit on 19 May 2022. After changing lawyers from FIDA to Muhangi Justus & Partners, the applicants realized their previous lawyers had incorrectly stated that the suit land belonged to their mother Jovia Bwinazi when it actually belonged to their father Golden Bwinazi. They sought to amend the plaint to correct this error.

Issues

  1. Whether the applicants should be granted leave to amend their plaint to correct the identification of the estate owner from Jovia Bwinazi to Golden Bwinazi.
  2. Whether the proposed amendment changes the cause of action or subject matter of the suit.
  3. Whether the proposed amendment would prejudice the respondents.

Orders

  • Leave granted to the applicants to amend their plaint.
  • Amendment to be effected within 14 days of the ruling.
  • Costs of the application to be in the cause.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Amendment of Pleadings — Discretion of Court — Principles Governing Grant of Leave
Under Order 6 Rule 19 of the Civil Procedure Rules, the High Court has powers to permit amendment of pleadings at any stage of proceedings, and courts are more flexible in allowing amendments when applications are made promptly at the earliest stage in litigation, with the burden on the applicant increasing as litigation advances.
Civil Procedure — Amendment of Pleadings — Principles — Avoidance of Injustice and Multiplicity of Proceedings
The principles governing exercise of discretion in allowing amendments include that the amendment should not occasion injustice to the opposite party (though injury compensable by costs is not injustice), multiplicity of proceedings should be avoided and all amendments avoiding such multiplicity should be allowed, malafide applications should not be granted, and no amendment should be allowed where expressly or impliedly prohibited by law.
Civil Procedure — Amendment of Pleadings — Change of Cause of Action — Rectification of Error in Pleadings
An amendment that substitutes one distinct cause of action for another or changes the subject matter of a suit or changes an action into one of substantially different character should not be allowed, but an amendment that merely rectifies an error in describing a party or property while leaving the causes of action unchanged may be permitted.

Legislation cited (2)

Cases cited (2)

  • Gaso Transport Services (Bus) Ltd v Martin Adala Obene (Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 4 of 1994)
  • JAS Progressive Investments (U) Ltd v Tropical Africa Bank Ltd (High Court Civil Suit No. 78 of 2011)

Cases citing this judgment (2)

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.

Komuhangi Adah and Another v Teriyetu Apollo and Another (Miscellaneous Application 0018 of 2024) [2025] UGHC 1418 (13 November 2025)
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.