YANKAH AND OTHERS vs. ADMINISTRATOR-GENERAL AND ANOTHER

The dispute concerned the validity of a codicil dated 6 September 1964 made by the late J. T. N. Yankah shortly before his death. Under his earlier will, a two-storeyed house was given to his wife for life and thereafter to all his grandchildren by her. By the codicil, the testator altered that disposition so that, after his wife’s death, the house would devolve exclusively on his daughter Hagar and her children, while certain pecuniary bequests were made to five of his sons. The appellants, being four of the testator’s male children suing as next friends of their infant children whose interests were adversely affected, sought to invalidate the codicil on the grounds, principally, that the testator was delirious and not in a fit state to execute it, and that the codicil had not been duly executed and attested according to law. Portion of judgment: “The appellants sought to invalidate the codicil on the main ground that the testator was delirious and was not in a fit physical state to execute the codicil.” Also: “The effect of the codicil, is that the interest which the children of the testator’s male children had in this house was extinguished.”

Apaloo J. S.C. delivered the judgement of the court. This appeal is from the judgment of Charles Crabbe J. (as he then was) in which he declined to revoke the codicil of the late J. T. N. Yankah who died at Accra on 7 September 1964. The testator was a schoolmaster of acknowledged eminence. Some years before his death, he took ill and was in and out of hospital by turns. The medical evidence shows that he was suffering from a blood disease known as leukaemia. It would seem that the testator had a premonition of his approaching end. He accordingly decided to dispose of his property by will. Being a scholar and a man of the world, he was not unknowledgeable about how to do this. He himself put his wishes in writing and requested Mr. Caseley-Hayford to put it in legal language. The latter is a relation of his by marriage being a first cousin to Mrs. Yankah. The evidence also shows that Mr. Caseley-Hayford was on terms of great intimacy with the testator and his wife. He and Mr. Yank...