Wakilii

Tom O'Lalobo v Tropical Bank Ltd (Civil Suit No. 676 of 2013)

High Court · [2017] UGCOMMC 285 · 2017 Preliminary Objection Partly Allowed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Preliminary objection to admissibility of documents at scheduling conference in first instance civil suit
Decision
Documents objected to by defendant rejected; suit to proceed to hearing within two weeks

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

Held that documents which are neither signed nor involve the parties to a suit, and which relate to the genesis of a facility rather than the commercial transaction in dispute, are not relevant to the issues to be tried. The Uganda Agriculture Credit Facility Fund Participating Agreement (unsigned draft), the MOU of 11 January 2012 (to which neither party was signatory), and pro forma invoices seeking to prove obligations under those agreements, were all rejected as irrelevant to a dispute concerning offer, acceptance, and management of loan facilities between plaintiff and defendant bank.

Outcome

Documents objected to by defendant rejected; suit to proceed to hearing within two weeks

Facts

The plaintiff and defendant were parties to two loan facilities including an ACF loan. During a scheduling conference the plaintiff indicated various documents it intended to rely on. The defendant objected to three documents: (1) Annexure C1, a draft Uganda Agriculture Credit Facility Fund Participating Agreement dated 13 November 2009, unsigned and not involving either party; (2) Annexure C2, an Addendum to a Memorandum of Understanding dated 11 January 2012 between Government, Bankers Association, Uganda Development Bank and others, to which neither plaintiff nor defendant was party; and (3) pro forma invoices of machines ordered dated October 2011. The defendant argued that the plaintiff could not rely on documents to which it was not party and which had no relevance to the commercial transaction in dispute.

Issues

  1. Whether the Uganda Agriculture Credit Facility Fund Participating Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding of 11th January 2012, and the pro forma invoices marked pages 18 to 25 are relevant to the matter before this court.

Orders

  • Annexure C1 and C2 to the plaint (documents marked 214 to 228 in the plaintiff's trial bundle) are rejected.
  • The pro forma invoices marked pages 18 to 25 in the plaintiff's trial bundle are rejected.
  • This suit must be set down for hearing within the next two weeks to ensure expeditious determination.

Rules and key headnotes

Evidence — Admissibility — Relevance
Admissibility of evidence is based on relevance; in determining admissibility, the court will not consider how evidence was obtained but whether what is admitted is relevant to the issues being tried.
Civil Procedure — Evidence at Trial — Exclusion of Irrelevant Documents
Documents which relate to the genesis of a transaction but not to the actual dispute between the parties, which are unsigned drafts, or to which the parties are not signatories, are not relevant and must be excluded to focus the court on the real issues in controversy.
Evidence — Weight and Admissibility — Trifling Weight
The judge ought to consider whether evidence proposed to be adduced is sufficiently substantial having regard to the purpose to which it is directed; if it can have only trifling weight, the judge will be right to exclude it, though this does not confuse weight with admissibility.

Legislation cited (6)

Cases cited (22)

  • Kiga Lane Hotel Limited v Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (Civil Suit No. 557 of 2004)
  • Susan Kigula & 415 Others v Uganda (Constitutional Petition No. 6 of 2003)
  • Nasra All Warsame v Osege Raiab (Civil Suit No. 003 of 2013)
  • Smith & Snipes Hall Farm Ltd v River Douglas Catchment Board [1949] 1 KB 500
  • Public Health Trust v Brown F.L.A.P.P (1980) 388So
  • C.E.S v Super Clinic (Australia) PTY Ltd (1995) 38 NSWLR 47
  • Elder, Dempster Co. Ltd v Person, Zochonis Co. Ltd [1942] AC 522
  • Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v Panatown Ltd
  • Touche v Metropolitan Railway Warehousing Company (1871) 6 Ch App 671
  • Re Empress Engineering Company (1880) 15 Ch D 125
  • Young v Bristol Aeroplane Company Limited [1944] KB 729
  • Mukisa Biscuit Manufacturing Co. Ltd v West-End Distributors Limited (1959) EA 596
  • Republic Vs Eldoret Water And Sanitation Company Limited, Booker Onyango And Another, Exparte Hohn Kwambai Rotich HCT Misc. Applcn No. 97 of 2003 (Kenya High Court)
  • Esso Petroleum Co. v Uganda Commercial Bank (Civil Appeal No. 14 of 1992)
  • Joachimson v Swiss Bank Corporation (1921) 3 KB 110
  • Sudan Commercial Bank Vs Sadiq Mohammed El Sadiq
  • Union Of India Vs Ibrahim Uddid & Anor SCCA No. 1373 of 2008
  • Green v Russell [1959] 2 QB 226
  • Musa Abubakar v E.I Chuks S.C.184/2003
  • Igbinoaia v The State (1987) 2 SC 5
  • Elias v Disu (1962) 1 All NLR 274
  • Noor Mohamed v The King [1949] AC 182

Full judgment

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Tom O'Lalobo v Tropical Bank Ltd (Civil Suit No. 676 of 2013) [2017] UGCommC 285 (28 April 2017)
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.