BANINI (AN INFANT) vs. ASARE

The plaintiff, Eric Banini, an infant suing by his father and next friend Daniel Kobla Banini, was a 16-year-old schoolboy who went onto the defendant’s farm on the night of 18 July 1983 and stole five cobs of corn. He was caught by the defendant, the farm owner, and sustained grave injuries to both hands, including extensive tendon, muscle, nerve and blood vessel damage to the right hand and amputation of the left middle finger. The central factual dispute was whether the defendant deliberately inflicted the injuries after apprehending the plaintiff, as the plaintiff alleged, or whether the injuries were caused while the defendant was acting in self-defence and in defence of his property, as the defendant contended. The court accepted the plaintiff’s version and found that the defendant deliberately cut the plaintiff’s hands after catching him. Portion of judgment: “The only common ground between the parties is that on the night of 18 July 1983 the plaintiff who at the material time was a schoolboy aged sixteen went on to the defendant’s farms to steal five cobs of corn... The defendant admits the injuries but the controversy between the parties is whether or not he inflicted same wilfully and intentionally...” and “In my judgment therefore the injuries were deliberately inflicted as maintained by the plaintiff; they were not inflicted in selfdefence as contended by the defendant.”