United Nigeria Insurance Company V. Adene (1971)

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Parties

UNITED NIGERIA INSURANCE COMPANY – Appellant(s)

AND

ADENE – Respondent(s)

MADARIKAN, J.S.C.

The appellants, the United Nigeria Insurance Co. Ltd., formerly known as the Northern Assurance Co. Ltd., were the defendants in the High Court, Kaduna, where the respondent had instituted an action, Suit No. Z/25/1967, against them on a writ which was indorsed as follows:

“The plaintiff’s claim against the defendants is for the sum of 2,500 pounds, being damages for breach of contract in that the plaintiff insured his 22-ton vehicle, a Fiat 643T tractor KA 9899 and its body-trailer KA 9896, with the defendant company at Kaduna comprehensively and when the said vehicle was damaged in a road accident on September 3rd, 1966 on the Zaria-Kana road during the currency of the said policy of insurance the defendants refused to indemnify the plaintiff against the financial loss and damage occasioned by the said accident.

The defendants have refused to repair the plaintiff’s said vehicle and have also refused to pay the plaintiff’s loss of use of same at the rate of 60 pounds per diem, which the plaintiff claims against the defendants from the date of the said accident till the date of judgment in this matter.

The defendants have refused to settle this claim, and have also refused to submit to arbitration despite repeated demands.”

On the return date, that is, August 15th, 1967, pleadings were ordered by the court. It would appear that, having agreed to submit to arbitration, the parties later that day appeared before Mr. Tunde Adewunmi who as the sole Arbitrator commenced arbitration proceedings, and on September 2nd, 1967 made an award in the following terms in favour of the present respondent, who was the plaintiff in the action and the claimant in the arbitration proceedings:

“In the result I award the claimant the sum of 7,300 pounds for both the pre-accident value of the vehicle and the loss of profit occasioned by the failure of the insurance company to repair or replace the tractor and trailer within a reasonable time of the accident.”

As an aftermath of the arbitration award, three applications were filed in the High Court and were listed for hearing before Bello, J. (as he then was).

The first application was filed by the plaintiff on September 23rd, 1967, praying for leave to enforce the award as a judgment of the court. The learned trial Judge refused the application on November 28th, 1967, and in so doing he stated, inter alia:

“However, I find that the application for leave to enforce is lacking in substance. There is no evidence of the award and the arbitration agreement which ought to have been verified by the affidavit in support of the application. The result therefore is that the court is left in the dark as to what were the terms of the arbitration agreement and the award. The affidavit simply states that an award was made and the applicant accepted it and now seeks its enforcement. I refuse leave to enforce the award on the only ground that the application is lacking in substance. I may as well indicate that this decision is not on the merits.”