14 May

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Alienation of Family Land in Nigeria: Analysing Valid, Void, and Voidable Sales

Somewhere in Lagos right now, someone is paying money for a piece of land that another person has no legal right to sell alone. It happens every week. And when the matter eventually reaches court, the buyer discovers that the money is gone but the land is not theirs. In most of those cases, the problem is not fraud in the obvious sense. It is a failure to understand how alienation of family land actually works under Nigerian customary law. This note explains that in full, including the part that most resources leave out: who exactly counts as a "principal member,"...

12 May

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Family Property in Nigerian Customary Law: Ownership, Control, and Legal Status

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 300 Level, Class Notes, Land Law

Every year in Nigeria, thousands of land disputes end up in court because someone sold a piece of land they had no right to sell alone. In many of those cases, the land in question is family property, and the person who sold it either did not know the law or chose to ignore it. By the time you finish reading this note, you will understand exactly why those sales fail in court, why the law is designed the way it is, and how to apply these principles to any exam question or real-world problem that comes before you. Why Customary...

10 May

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Edokpolo & Co. Ltd v. Sem-Edo Wire Industries Ltd & Ors. (1984) 7 S.C. 119; (1984) N.S.C.C. 553 — Supreme Court of Nigeria, 12 July 1984

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Company Law, Landmark Judgments, Study Resources

Area of Law: Company Law — Pre-Incorporation Contracts; Ratification; Corporate Personality; CAMA Every Nigerian corporate law course places this case at the centre of its pre-incorporation contracts lecture. The principle extracted from it, that a company is not bound by contracts made on its behalf before it existed, and cannot ratify them after, is stated as settled authority in textbooks, lecture notes, and examination answers. What nobody in that tradition stops to examine is Bello JSC's concurring judgment. Bello JSC agreed with the outcome. He did not agree with how the majority got there. His position, that the case should not have...

09 May

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Yalaju-Amaye v Associated Registered Engineering Contractors Ltd [1990] 4 NWLR (Pt. 145) 422

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Company Law, Landmark Judgments

Engineer Samuel Diden Yalaju-Amaye v Associated Registered Engineering Contractors Ltd & Ors (SC 198/1986) [1990] 4 NWLR (Pt. 145) 422, Supreme Court of Nigeria Area of Law: Company Law — Director Removal, Board Meeting Procedure, Minority Shareholder Protection, Foss v Harbottle A founding engineer named in his company's Articles of Association as permanent Managing Director was pushed out of his own company through a combination of shouting, a fabricated extraordinary general meeting, and forged board minutes. The Supreme Court restored him. In doing so, it confirmed that a director cannot be removed without strict compliance with the statutory procedure under the...

08 May

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Armory v. Delamirie [1722] EWHC J94; (1722) 1 Strange 505; 93 ER 664 — Court of King’s Bench, England

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

Area of Law: Property — Finder's Rights; Possessory Title; Trover; Damages The defendant's name is spelled wrong, in the case report, in every textbook, and in every citation for three hundred years. The plaintiff may not have been the person who actually found the jewel. And the case that established possession as a property right enforceable against the world was decided in the name of a boy whose social position, in 1722 England, placed him at roughly the same level as the working livestock. Start with the name. The defendant was Paul de Lamerie, two words, one capital letter, no "i" in...

07 May

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Williams v. Roffey Bros. & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd. [1990] 2 WLR 1153; [1989] EWCA Civ 5 — Court of Appeal, England

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

Area of Law: Contract — Consideration; Pre-Existing Duty Rule; Contract Modification The standard account of this case runs like this: a rigid nineteenth-century rule prevented parties from enforcing renegotiated contracts, the Court of Appeal modernised it by introducing "practical benefit" as valid consideration, and the doctrine of consideration was saved from its own absurdity. That account is not wrong. But it is incomplete in ways that matter, particularly for Nigerian contract law, where the case is cited as settled authority but has never been squarely applied, and where the problems buried inside the judgment have been transported wholesale into a legal...

06 May

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Balfour v. Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571: Court of Appeal, England

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

Balfour v. Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571; Court of Appeal, England Area of Law: Contract: Intention to Create Legal Relations; Domestic Agreements The principle that domestic agreements are presumptively non-binding for want of intention to create legal relations, the doctrine attributed to Balfour v. Balfour in every Nigerian contract textbook, every case note, every law school outline, was articulated by exactly one of the three judges who decided the case. Atkin LJ. The other two, Warrington LJ and Duke LJ, decided on entirely different grounds. They doubted whether Mrs. Balfour had provided any consideration at all. Not intention. Consideration. Two different legal...

05 May

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Central London Property Trust Ltd v High Trees House Ltd KB 130: Obiter That Outlived Its Case

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

The most consequential doctrine in the English law of contract modification was announced by a first-instance judge, in response to a question nobody asked, in a case he decided entirely in favour of the opposing party. That is the doctrinal origin of promissory estoppel, and it tells you almost everything you need to know about how Lord Denning operated. Facts of the Case In 1937, Central London Property Trust Ltd leased a block of flats in Battersea to High Trees House Ltd on a ninety-nine-year lease at £2,500 per year.1 World War II devastated the London rental market. Bombing, evacuation, and displacement...

05 May

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Hadley v Baxendale [1854]: The Rule That Rewards Silence

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments, Law of Contract

Hadley & Anor v Baxendale & Ors [1854] EWHC Exch J70, Court of Exchequer (England) Area of Law: Contract Law: Remoteness of Damage, Consequential Loss, Measure of Damages A note for readers new to this case: A miller's crankshaft broke. He hired a carrier to transport it to a manufacturer so a replacement could be made. The carrier delayed delivery by several days. The mill stayed shut longer than it should have. The miller sued for the lost profits. The court said no; the carrier never knew the mill's entire operation depended on that one shaft, so he could not have...

04 May

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Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893]: The Company That Won by Losing

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments, Study Resources

Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256, Court of Appeal (England and Wales) Area of Law: Contract Law — Formation, Unilateral Offer, Acceptance by Performance, Consideration There is something almost comic about the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company. They lost the case. Badly. Unanimously. Three judges, not one dissent, zero sympathy. And yet, within weeks of the Court of Appeal's decision, their managing director Frederick Roe placed a new advertisement in the Illustrated London News, reframed the entire defeat as proof that the product worked, and the company continued trading. The men were rogues — Lindley LJ himself implied...

Alienation of Family Land in Nigeria: Analysing Valid, Void, and Voidable Sales

Family Property in Nigerian Customary Law: Ownership, Control, and Legal Status

Edokpolo & Co. Ltd v. Sem-Edo Wire Industries Ltd & Ors. (1984) 7 S.C. 119; (1984) N.S.C.C. 553 — Supreme Court of Nigeria, 12 July 1984

Yalaju-Amaye v Associated Registered Engineering Contractors Ltd [1990] 4 NWLR (Pt. 145) 422

Armory v. Delamirie [1722] EWHC J94; (1722) 1 Strange 505; 93 ER 664 — Court of King’s Bench, England

Williams v. Roffey Bros. & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd. [1990] 2 WLR 1153; [1989] EWCA Civ 5 — Court of Appeal, England

Balfour v. Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571: Court of Appeal, England

Central London Property Trust Ltd v High Trees House Ltd KB 130: Obiter That Outlived Its Case

Hadley v Baxendale [1854]: The Rule That Rewards Silence

Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893]: The Company That Won by Losing

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