VANDERPUYE vs. GOLIGHTLY AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF APALOO J.S.C. This is an appeal from the judgment of Ollennu J. (as he then was) dated 27 November 1961. By that judgment, the court declared a piece of land situate at Adadainkpo and fully described in the writ, as the self-acquired property of the late Odartey Golightly and that a lease of this land granted by the late Kojo Golightly was void and of no effect. The court also ordered in favour of the plaintiffs, who are the children of the said Odartey Golightly, recovery of possession of the said land. The facts of this case have no unusual features and I will relate them briefly in order that the complaint which is made against the judgment appealed from may be seen in its right focus. The Golightly family seem to have hailed from Sempe in Ga Mashi where they owned a family house. The evidence shows that on a date prior to 1917, that house was mortgaged by the family to a firm known as J. J. Fisher & Co. It is perhaps not an unreasonable conjecture that the house was mo...