KLM ROYAL DUTCH AIRLINES vs. BIRDS, BEASTS AND REPTILES AGENCY

JUDGMENT OF AMISSAH J.A. The issue in this appeal turns within a very narrow compass. It is whether the learned trial magistrate was right or not in construing a letter written by the appellants, the Royal Dutch Airlines, as a guarantee for payment of the price of live animals consigned by the respondents to Messrs. Animal Distributors, Inc., a corporation in New York. Some time in 1964, the respondents agreed to send animals to this corporation in New York. According to the president-director of the respondents it was a condition of the contract that the corporation should find somebody in Ghana to guarantee them against payment for the animals or to send the money to the respondents, presumably in advance of consignment. The guarantee was asked for, if indeed it was, for the obvious purpose of providing someone here on whom the respondents could fall if the corporation were to fail to pay for any animals sent them. If this was the true position, and the learned magistrate held t...