A claimant for specific performance of a contract must set forth facts to show that the breach of the contract cannot be adequately compensated for in damages. This is so because specific performance would not be decreed if the claimant would be adequately compensated by the common law remedy of damages.
An interested party in a matter before a court of law, is a party or person who is affected or aggrieved or likely to be aggrieved by the proceedings, orders or decision of the court in the matter. It can also refer to a person who has suffered a legal grievance, or a person against whom a decision has been pronounced which has wrongfully deprived him of something or wrongfully affected his title to something
Where a suit is commenced by originating summons, the content of the affidavit in support of the summons, rather than pleadings, forms the basis of the court’s determination whether the defence of limitation of action is viable. In this case, all that the respondents’ supporting affidavit needed to provide in respect of the issue of statute-bar was the time the cause of action accrued and when the action against the appellants was commenced.
An amendment duly made takes effect from the date of the original document sought to be amended; and this applies to every successive further amendment of whichever nature and at whatever stage it is made.
The term “novation” denotes an agreement entered into by two or more contracting parties, thereby consenting to allow for the substitution of a new party for an existing one. The original contracting party being replaced by the new party is thereby excused. By its very nature, a novation is a new obligation that extinguishes and replaces an original contract or obligation. Novation equally applies to substitution of parties.
Negligence is said to be omission or failure to do something which a reasonable man, under similar circumstances, would do or doing of something which a reasonable and prudent man would not do. Put differently, negligence is the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate conduct of human affairs, would do or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do.
A moot case is a matter in which a controversy no longer exists; a case that presents only an abstract question that does not arise from existing facts or rights. Thus, a moot case is drained of any casus belli or cognisable interest inter partes to ignite the jurisdiction of a court. (P. 428, paras. G-H).
Miscarriage of justice simply means justice miscarried, failure of justice or failure of a court to do justice. It means a departure from the rules which permeates a judicial procedure as to make that which happened not, in the proper sense of the word, a judicial procedure at all. It is a substantial wrong which occurs during a trial which so affects the proceeding so as to merit quashing the result.
Locus standi denotes the legal capacity to institute or commence an action in a competent court of law or tribunal. The term entails the legal capacity of instituting or commencing an action in a competent court of law or tribunal without any inhibition, obstruction, or hindrance from any person or body whatsoever. The issue of locus standi is a condition precedent to the determination of a case on merit. Where a plaintiff has no locus standi to bring a suit, the suit becomes incompetent and the court lacks the jurisdiction to entertain it. The only order the court can make in the circumstance is that of dismissal.
A State Government or the Governor of a State has no power to constitute, appoint or determine a local government that S. 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution has prescribed can only be by Local Government Councils democratically elected by persons in a local government area.
