O'garro v Samuel

• Jurisdiction: Montserrat
• Court: High Court (Montserrat)
• Judge: Lewis, J.A.
• Judgment Date: 05 May 1970
• Neutral Citation: MS 1970 HC 5
• Docket Number: Civil Appeal No. 1 of 1970
• Date: 05 May 1970

Court of Appeal

Lewis, C.J. (Ag.); Cecil Lewis, J.A,; St. Bernard, J.A. (Ag.)

Civil Appeal No. 1 of 1970

O'garro

and

Samuel

K. Allen for Appellant

J.S. Weekes for Respondent

Practice and procedure - Claim against judgment for trespass — Whether the magistrate' findings were reasonable — The evidence showed the inevitability of the magistrate's decision — Appeal dismissed.

Lewis, J.A.

1 In the court below the plaintiff claimed against the defendant the sum of $75.00 for damages for wrongfully entering the plaintiff's land, or land in possession of the plaintiff, and destroying the plaintiff's crops growing thereon on the 27 ^th day of September, 1969. The matter came on for hearing before Magistrate Aurelius B. Marie and he found in favour of the plaintiff.

2 The plaintiff said that the land on which she had her crops growing had been bought by her mother in 1919 from one Ann Weekes of Flemmings, and that she had lived on it and paid taxes for it from the year 1980. She herself was born in 1901 and was 18 years old when she saw the boundaries pointed out to her mother when she purchased the land. Her mother died in 1964 and as her mother's only daughter she took out Letters of Administration to her mother's estate. She produced the Letters of Administration and also a receipt for £10 showing that her mother had bought half an acre of land from Ann Weekes, who in turn had bought it from Frances Corbett. She also produced several tax receipts for the land and said after her mother died she took possession of the land and worked it.

3 The plaintiff has been working this land, as she says, from her...