Sagicor Bank Jamaica Ltd v YP Seaton and Others

• Jurisdiction: Jamaica
• Judge: McDonald-Bishop JA
• Judgment Date: 24 April 2015
• Neutral Citation: JM 2015 CA 49
• Docket Number: SUPREME COURT CIVIL APPEAL NO 33/2014 APPLICATION NOS 11 AND 21/2015
• Court: Court of Appeal (Jamaica)
• Date: 24 April 2015

[2015] JMCA App 18

JAMAICA

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

SUPREME COURT CIVIL APPEAL NO 33/2014

APPLICATION NOS 11 AND 21/2015

Between

Sagicor Bank Jamaica Limited (Formerly Known as RBTT Bank Jamaica Limited)

Appellant

and

YP Seaton

1st Respondent

and

Earthcrane Haulage Limited

2nd Respondent

and

YP Seaton & Associates Company Limited

3rd Respondent

Michael Hylton QC , Kevin Powell and Sundiata Gibbs instructed by Hylton Powell for the appellant

Mrs Pamela Benka-Coker QC and Miss Anna Gracie instructed by Rattray Patterson Rattray for the respondents

CIVIL PROCEDURE - Striking out - Application to strike out - Application for stay - Whether Sagicor has locus standi to apply in matter - Change in name - Legal effect of change of name - Whether court can permit amendment to name of party to stand without a formal application to do so - Whether sums awarded properly claimed - Whether there was duplication of judgment - Whether sums paid can be recovered if appeals succeed - Court of Appeal Rules 2002, R. 1.7(n)

IN CHAMBERS

McDonald-Bishop JA (Ag)

Introduction

1 These proceedings primarily involve the consideration of two different but interrelated applications. The first application was made by the appellant, Sagicor Bank Jamaica Limited (‘Sagicor’), formerly known as RBTT Bank Jamaica Limited (‘RBTT’), for a stay of execution of the judgments of Sykes J granted in favour of the respondents (the ‘Seaton Parties’) on 17 March and 24 September 2014. Emanating from that application for stay of execution was a preliminary issue that was raised for consideration by the Seaton Parties as to whether Sagicor had the requisite locus standi to make the application. The second application was brought by the Seaton Parties for the court to strike out or to rule as inadmissible an affidavit of Devon Rowe that was filed by Sagicor in support of its application for the stay.

2 At the end of the consideration of the respective applications, I made the following orders:

A. On the preliminary issue as to the locus standi of Sagicor:

• ‘(1) From the date hereof, the name of the appellant shall be changed from RBTT Bank Jamaica Limited to Sagicor Bank Jamaica Limited.

• (2) All documents filed in the name of Sagicor Bank Jamaica Limited as appellant up to today's date are permitted to stand.’

B. On the Seaton Parties' application to strike out the affidavit of Devon

Rowe:

‘The respondents' application to strike out the affidavit of Devon Rowe filed on 6 February 2015 is refused.’

C. On Sagicor's application for stay of execution:

• ‘(1) The orders of Sykes J made on 17 March 2014 and 24 September 2014 are stayed pending the determination of the appeal.

• (2) Costs shall be costs in the appeal.’

After making those orders, I promised to reduce my reasons for so doing in writing. This is a fulfillment of that promise.

The background

3 The dispute between the parties that has led to these proceedings has had a long and tumultuous journey through the courts for over two decades and its resolution, from all indications, is not yet close in sight. Its sojourn in the courts commenced in 1993, being roughly 22 years ago, when Eagle Commercial Bank (‘Eagle’) commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court against the Seaton Parties in a claim numbered CL 1993/E083 (‘the Bank's claim’) in which it sought to recover money it claimed it had erroneously overpaid to their accounts. Eagle claimed recovery of the overpayments with interest and a declaration that it was lawfully entitled to debit the sum of $15,254,583.69 from accounts standing in the name of YP Seaton, the 1 ^st respondent. Before filing the claim, Eagle had also frozen several of Mr Seaton's personal accounts.

4 Mr Seaton, thereafter, commenced proceedings against Eagle in a subsequent claim numbered CL 1993/S252 (‘the Seaton claim’) in which he claimed that Eagle had wrongly frozen five foreign currency accounts standing in his name. He claimed for payment of the principal sums in those accounts with interest, damages and an account in relation to the five accounts. Mr Seaton claimed for an account on the basis that although Eagle had repaid some of the money it had frozen, he is not sure if he had received all of it inclusive of interest. He, therefore, claimed for all the sums found due and owing to him after the taking of the account.

5 By an order of the court the two claims were eventually consolidated. Also, before the trial of the claims commenced, RBTT (which will at times be referred to as ‘the Bank’) was eventually substituted for Eagle as the claimant on the Bank's claim and as the defendant on the Seaton claim.

6 After a few interlocutory applications, the trial of the consolidated claims commenced before Sykes J. By a judgment entered on 17 March 2014, Sykes J refused to grant the declarations sought on the Bank's claim that it was entitled to debit the sum of $15,254,583.69 from Mr Seaton's account and he, instead, ordered that the Bank is to repay that sum with interest. On the Seaton claim, he also entered judgment for Mr Seaton and ordered, inter alia, an account to be taken by the registrar of the Supreme Court and that the Bank is to pay to Mr Seaton any sum that was found due and owing to him by the registrar with interest. He ordered too that the sum ultimately found by the registrar to be due and owing to Mr Seaton is to be taken as final.

7 Sykes J, after a post-judgment hearing that was conducted to consider, among other things, the question of the basis on which interest should be calculated and paid on the sums found due and owing by the registrar, ordered by the second judgment of 24 September 2014 that the interest to be paid by the Bank is to be monthly compound interest at 27.3%. He also ordered, among other things, specific disclosure to be made by the Bank and the payment by it of indemnity costs, interests on costs as well as interim costs.

8 Sykes J granted a stay in relation to the payment of the sum of $15,254,583.69 but did not stay the other aspects of the judgments. Consequently, the accounting exercise commenced in the Supreme Court with the Seaton Parties submitting, for the purposes of the accounting, a summary of calculation of their claim for principal and interest as being somewhere in the region of four billion dollars. This was arrived at after a computation done on the basis of compound interest at the rate that was stipulated by the learned trial judge.

9 An appeal was subsequently filed by RBTT challenging the orders contained in the two judgments of Sykes J on numerous grounds. Sagicor later filed its application for a stay of execution of both judgments pending the hearing of the appeal with which these proceedings are concerned. It was the entry of Sagicor's name on the record for the purposes of the application for the stay that led to a dispute between the parties that had to be resolved as a preliminary issue on the hearing of the substantive application for the stay.

Preliminary issue: locus standi of Sagicor to apply for stay of execution

10 With respect to the preliminary issue raised by the Seaton Parties as to the locus standi of Sagicor to apply for the stay of execution, I concluded that Sagicor has locus standi in the matter and is thus a proper party to bring the appeal against the judgments of Sykes J and to apply for stay of execution of them. The reasons that have led me to that conclusion will now be discussed.

Reasoning

11 Sagicor, without applying for permission to amend the name of the claimant on the Bank's claim and of the defendant on the Seaton claim from RBTT to Sagicor, filed the application to this court for a stay of execution in its name but indicating that it was formerly known as RBTT. The Seaton Parties took the point that Sagicor was without locus standi in the proceedings before this court and that its application should be dismissed. The Seaton Parties pointed to the history of the proceedings and noted that RBTT had ceased to exist since 2011.

12 It would mean then, on the argument of the Seaton Parties, that the case would have proceeded in the court below since 2011 without a proper party to the claims, that is, no claimant on the Bank claim or defendant on the Seaton claim. When the Seaton Parties' contention is taken to its logical conclusion, it would mean that when Sykes J entered judgment in 2014, the party against whom judgment was entered would have no longer existed and there was no party substituted for it or added to carry on the proceedings in its stead. It follows then that there would have been no known existing judgment debtor against whom the judgments could be enforced.

13 Despite the position taken by the Seaton Parties that RBTT no longer existed and the state of affairs that would have resulted from such a situation, the matter concerning RBTT's standing as an existing party was not conclusively settled before judgment. Sykes J, instead, made a post-judgment order for specific disclosure upon the application of the Seaton Parties that, inter alia, sought to ascertain whether Sagicor was the proper successor of RBTT in the matter. It was that controversy that had commenced below as to Sagicor's standing in the matter that persisted up to this court. It was, therefore, necessary for the locus standi of Sagicor before this court to be established before any further step could be taken in the proceedings in order to treat with the issues arising on appeal.

14 In embarking on an examination of that vexed question of Sagicor's locus standi in the proceedings on appeal, I formed the view that final judgment having been entered by the trial judge on the claims in question with the appellate jurisdiction now having been invoked to treat with the judgment, the Supreme Court would have been functus officio to determine the ...