Essay Example on When buyers and sellers transact business with clear Terms

When buyers and sellers transact business with clear terms a contract is said to have been established for the purpose of the said transaction The contract so established will be binding on both parties in respect of the good price mode of payment quantity and quality delivery terms and many more These terms will form the very fundamentals of the contract of the sale Violation of the terms so agreed by either party to the contact will constitute a breach of the sale agreement and will entitle the injured party the right to seek remedy for losses suffered The rights of the injured party resulting from such breaches are personal rights In general all parties to a sale agreement have an obligation of performance towards one another but in circumstances where one party fails to meet or performs its obligation towards the other this will then provoke the right of the other party The remedies that may accrue to the injured party may take the form of specific performance repudiation of the contract damages in the form of money In the Ghanaian jurisdiction the law that governs sale transactions is embodied in a document known as the Sale of Goods Act 1962 Act 137 hereafter referred to in this paper as 

The Act An attempt will be made in this paper to evaluate the scope of the rights of the buyer under the Act in the event that the seller breaches any of the agreed terms Personal rights are rights in personam That is those rights that one individual has against another individual for injury suffered by him or her resulting from the action or non action of another person for which a remedy may be sought in civil proceeding in the court of law Sections 53 through 58 of the Act discuss what constitutes the personal rights of the buyer The following five decided cases by courts in Ghana will be discussed to explore how these rights of the buyer are employed in the event of a breach of contract of sale The cases are I TAWIAH v GHANA CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY AND OTHERS ii ROCKSON v ARMAH iii KWETEY v BOTCHWAY AND ANOTHER iv BIRCH v ASEMPA AND ANOTHER v NANOR v AUTO PARTS LTD In the case of TAWIAH v GHANA CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY AND OTHERS the case was about a breach of contract for refusal to deliver after sale Tawiah Plaintiff bought and paid at a public auction a Ghana Civil Aviation Authority s GCAA unserviceable old water storage tank Four days after the sale Tawiah went to the GCAA to collect the tank but the management of GCAA refused to give up the tank to the Tawiah The reason for the refusal was that the Ministry of Health MOH had directed that the tank was to be given to Pantang Hospital to solve that hospital s water problem Tawiah therefore sued for breach of contract 

The Court of Appeal decision was based on the fact that since the car was a second hand car and the respondent had used it for two months the car could not be categorised as not fit for the purpose for which a car is usually used In arriving at the decision the Court of Appeal relied on Bartlett v Sidney Marcus Ltd an English Court of Appeal decision and applied the principle given therein by Lord Denning to arrive at its judgement in Rockson v Armah on the rights of the buyer to repudiate the sale of a second hand car on the ground of latent defects Prof JEA Mills observed that in deciding the Rockson case two errors were committed The first was the court's acceptance of the English Court of Appeal decision in the case of Bartlett v Sidney Marcus Ltd as being applicable under Ghana law secondly the adoption and subsequent application under the Ghanaian law to govern the rights of the buyer to repudiate the sale of a second hand car on the ground of latent defects as enunciated by Lord Denning M R Prof Mills therefore argued that although the outcome judgment of the court was right their reasoning for reaching such a conclusion was incorrect especially since there was nothing like that under Ghanaian law