Flood v Flood
| Jurisdiction | St Lucia |
| Judge | Davis, C.J. |
| Judgment Date | 23 May 1978 |
| Neutral Citation | LC 1978 CA 3 |
| Docket Number | Civil Appeal No. 8 of 1977 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Saint Lucia) |
| Date | 23 May 1978 |
Court of Appeal
Davis, C.J., Peterkin, J.A., Berridge, J.A. (Ag)
Civil Appeal No. 8 of 1977
Appellant in person.
K. Monplaisir, Esq. For the respondent.
Real property - Ownership — Whether trial judge wrongly concluded that the land was owned by the plaintiff.
This is an appeal against the judgment of Mr. Justice Renwick in which he ordered the defendant/appellant to deliver up possession to the plaintiff/respondent of the 2 portions of land, registered in Vol.109, No. 911333; to render an account of the profits earned out of the cultivation of the said land; to pay damages in the sum of $1,000, and to pay the costs of the action to he taxed.
There are several grounds of appeal but I do not intend to go into them in any detail because, in my view, this appeal turns on a question of fact, that is to say, whether the Learned Trial Judge was right in the conclusions to which he arrived, having regard to the evidence which he had before him.
To put it briefly, the story of the plaintiff was, that his father rented certain lands at Cannelles in the Quarter of Micoud from one Arthur Barnard, where he lived with his wife and children until his death. He died in the year 1945, leaving his widow and 8 children, and it will appear that after his death things became very bad financially for the family.
At that time, three of the children were at work including the plaintiff who was then a mechanic. The defendant/appellant who was a school teacher earned a very small sum, I believe in the region of 10/-per month, and his twin sister who was also a pupil teacher earned about the same sum. Indeed, it would appear that things were so bad that the widow was put on poor relief and that she continued to receive poor relief until 1947 when the plaintiff /respondent joined the Police Force. At this stage, according to the plaintiff/respondent, he became the, breadwinner of the family and he not only supported his mother but he contributed to the maintenance and education of the, younger children of the family.
In the year 1953, he saw an advertisement in the Voice newspaper that the owners of Cannelles Estate were selling portions of that Estate. He spoke with his mother about it and according to him, she said she had no money, Raymond had no money, and in fact she was not interested in owning this dry land. She did not wish to live in the bush. People who were living in the towns were better off and it was her intention to move into the town of Micoud. He said he told her that he would buy the land because on his retirement from the Force he would wish to live in the country. Accordingly, he negotiated with the owners to purchase not only the land which his father rented but it will appear, another portion adjacent to that land; and as a result of these negotiations he purchased the land at Desruisseaux from Denis Barnard for $624. He said that the entire sum which he paid for the land was his money. He gave evidence as to how he came by this sum — that he got it from his savings; that he paid the purchase price in two instalments, and he produced in evidence receipts showing when and how the purchase price was paid.
In 1956, according to him, the defendant/appellant came to him and told him “Brother, please allow me to work your land because I am idle and I do not want to fall. I asked him what is it he wants? He said Brother I would like to cultivate the hand but I have no money.” He said this conversation took place at his mother's home, or their mother's home at Desruisseaux and that he gave the defendant/appellant the sum of $100 to buy banana plants to be planted on the land. He went on to say he furnished other monies for the development of the land; he gave money for coconut plants. He told the court how those plants were transported to the land; he gave the name of Mr. J. Baptiste who apparently was the owner of the truck which transported the plants to the land; then he said he gave $400 for digging drains on the land; and later his brother Raymond came back to him and asked for money to buy fertilizer. On that occasion, he gave him $500. Then later again there was talk about hiring a tractor to cut roads on the land and he gave the brother $1,000 to pay for the tractor hire. He said that he and his brother then came to an agreement; that the brother would supply his labour for the development of the land and that they would share the profits to use his own term - half/half. He said that the brother never shared the profits with him; and despite repeated requests culminating in a letter which he wrote to him in 1973 about his share of the profits, the position remained as it was until the issue of the Writ in this action.
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