SUPREME COURT, ACCRA
DATE: 19TH MARCH, 1962
BEFORE: KORSAH, C.J., VAN LARE AND SARKODEE-ADDO, JJ.S.C.
NATURE OF PROCEEDINGS
APPEAL from a judgment of the High Court, Kumasi awarding the respondent £G480 damages against the appellant and one Kwasi Boye jointly and severally for damage caused by negligent driving. Kwasi Boye did not appeal.
COUNSEL
Anin for the appellant.
E. K. Edusei for the respondent.
JUDGMENT OF VAN LARE, J.S.C.
Van Lare, J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. [His lordship stated the facts as set out in the headnote and continued:] On the 9th April, 1959 Kwasi Boye drove the car to Kumasi to obtain a certificate of road worthiness from the certifying and examining officer. This the appellant knew and impliedly authorised. Even if he did not so authorise, driving the car to Kumasi for this purpose was so connected with the appellant’s taxi business that in doing so Kwasi Boye would in our view be acting within the scope of his employment.
The only point we had to decide in this appeal was whether the appellant’s said servant was acting on his own or for the purpose of his employer when he brought the car down to Kumasi that day. The appellant said he prohibited Kwasi Boye from running the car until it was licensed and insured, and therefore when he carried a passenger in the unlicensed and uninsured taxi his said servant was not acting on his authority. It was also suggested that the driver could have returned to the village much earlier than 7 p.m. and his delay in Kumasi therefore placed him outside his employer’s business.
These arguments did not impress us. The fact that the appellant gave his servant money with instructions to renew the motor licence, and to take insurance in order to operate the vehicle impliedly authorised him to take the vehicle to Kumasi for testing to obtain a certificate of road worthiness, as this was a sine qua non for obtaining the motor licence. It was the duty of the driver to return to his normal garage at Kokoti and the fact that he could have left some time
[p.180] of [1962] 2 GLR 178
earlier did not affect his duty to return to the normal garage. We did not think that because the servant casually picked up a passenger on the return journey before the collision placed him outside the scope of his employer’s business by reason of the fact that the car had not then been licensed nor insured.
As it was clear on the evidence that Kwasi Boye was a servant of the appellant on whose errand he was engaged and that it was his duty to drive the appellant’s taxi car at the time of the accident, the appellant was liable in damages resulting from the negligent driving of the taxi car by his said servant.
For the reasons indicated we dismiss the appeal.
DECISION
Appeal dismissed.
