Bamgbose v Daniel
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judgment Date | 1954 |
| Date | 1954 |
| Year | 1954 |
| Court | Privy Council |
West Africa (Nigeria) - Succession - Intestacy - Child of marriage under Marriage Ordinance, 1884 - Polygamous marriages - In accordance with native law and custom - Right of issue to succeed - on intestacy - Applicability of law of England - Marriage Ordinance, No. 14 of 1884 (Lagos), s. 41 -
The deceased, the child of a marriage contracted under the
Held, that, subject to the respondents establishing their status of legitimacy under the law of their domicile, they came within the class of persons entitled to succeed under the English Statute of Distributions, which was the relevant law of England in 1884. As a matter of construction and on the authorities that statute could not be limited in its local application to children who were the issue of monogamous unions, and the effect of its application to the cases to which it applied was to fix the order of succession according to a table different from that prevailing under native law and custom.
The principle of In re Goodman's Trusts (
APPEAL (No. 19 of 1953) from a judgment of the West African Court of Appeal (June 2, 1952), in a matter relating to the distribution of the estate of John St. Matthew Daniel (hereafter referred to as the deceased), who died at Lagos on April 25, 1948, intestate. The Administrator-General of Nigeria was appointed administrator of the estate by order of the Supreme Court of Nigeria made on February 1, 1949.
The followings facts are taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee: The history of the matter was as follows. The deceased was the son, born posthumously, of Matthew Joaquim Daniel and Theresa Maria, who were married in a Wesleyan Methodist church in Lagos on September 28, 1890. That was a marriage under the
In the Supreme Court of Nigeria at Lagos, Robinson J., on May 17, 1951, made orders for distribution of the estate among the deceased's children. On appeal by the present appellant the West African Court of Appeal (Sutton P., de Comarmond Ag.C.J. (Nigeria) and Coussey J.A.) on June 2, 1952, allowed the appeal on the ground that there was insufficient evidence before the trial judge to justify his assumption that the 12 children concerned were issue of marriages with the deceased and remitted the respondents' motions for distribution of the estate to the court below for hearing de novo. The Court of Appeal further directed that the court below should require the respondents to adduce evidence sufficient to satisfy it on the following matters: (1) Whether the mothers of the 12 respondents were married to the intestate John St. Matthew Daniel, in accordance with the native law and custom applicable in each case. (2) Whether the respondents, or any of them, were the issue of such marriages; and if so, of which such marriages; and (3) whether by the native law and custom applicable in each case the respondents, or any of them, had the status of legitimate children.
The appellant was allowed to be joined as opposer to the respondents' motions.
In so doing it was clear from the judgment of the Court of Appeal that they rejected a claim by the appellant to oust the respondents from any...
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...Eng Swee(1887) 4 Ky. 325. The same interpretation was adopted by the Judicial Committee on appeal from West Africa in Bamgbose v. Daniel[1955] A.C. 107. 271 [1891] 2 Q.B. 267 at p. 272. 272 (1937) 58 C.L.R. 618 at p. 634. 273 (1909) 8 C.L.R. 465. 274 Ibid., at p. 500. 275 (1915) 20 C.L.R. 1......