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Reviewing the Decision of the Nigerian Supreme Court in Huebner v AIE and PM Co Ltd: A Dissenting Opinion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2020
Abstract
In this case, the Nigerian Supreme Court had the opportunity to build on the foundations of Nigerian trust law. The court was faced with facts that should have led to the implication of a resulting trust in favour of the appellant, since he had purchased a large parcel of land in the name of the respondent. While accepting that it made no contribution to the purchase or development of the land, the respondent sought to escape its fiduciary duty by alleging illegality, using the provisions of the Land Use Act as a statutory shield. The Nigerian Supreme Court endorsed the respondent's position, by electing to focus on the breach of the statute, while ignoring that equity would not allow a statute to be used as an instrument of fraud. This article shows how the court erred, as the statutory breach was not fatal to the appellant's claim: equity does not demand that its suitors have led blameless lives.
- Type
- Case Note
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © SOAS University of London, 2020
Footnotes
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BSc (international law and diplomacy, Babcock University), LLB (Coventry University), LLM (University of Law, Birmingham), ACArb (Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators). Barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria; counsel, OA Omonuwa (SAN) & Co.
References
1 [2017] 14 NWLR (pt 1586) 397.
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3 [1996] 2 All ER 961.
4 Id at 990G–91A (emphasis original).
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6 See: Dyer v Dyer (1788) 2 Cox Eq Cas 92 at 93; and Goodfriend v Goodfriend [1972] SCR 640 at 646.
7 Lavelle v Lavelle [2004] EWCA Civ 223.
8 Vandervell v Commissioners of Inland Revenue [1966] 43 UKHL TC 519 at 544 and 558.
9 Panesar Exploring Equity and Trusts, above at note 2 at 284.
10 Huebner, above at note 1 at 417C–H and 420F–G.
11 Id at 421B–422G.
12 Id at 432C–F.
13 Under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), sec 235, “no appeal shall lie to any other body or person from any determination of the Supreme Court”.
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26 See Gbadamosi v Akinloye [2013] 15 NWLR (pt 1378) 455 at 479.
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35 Id at 228–29.
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37 Id at 30F–31F (emphasis added).
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44 Id at 86B–91H (emphasis added).
45 Compare with Gascoigne v Gascoigne [1918] 1 KB 223.
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49 Brereton “Equitable estoppel”, above at note 47 at 1.
50 Panesar Exploring Equity and Trusts, above at note 2 at 437, where the learned author writes: “Equity has long established the maxim that a person cannot use a statute to set up his own fraud … Where the intended beneficiary can prove by some other evidence the existence of the trust of land, equity will enforce the trust. The trust is enforced on the grounds that it would be fraudulent for a person to take land absolutely in circumstances where he … agreed to hold it for the beneficiary. The view taken in this book is that in such a case the intended trustee will become a constructive trustee for the intended beneficiary.”