A limited liability company,HEPA Global Energy limited has filed an application before a Federal high court sitting in Lagos south West Nigeria, seeking the order of the court to set aside default judgement of N30,511,278.20 alleged to have been obtained by an indigenous insurance company Great Nigeria Insurance Plc against the company
In an affidavit sworn to by a legal practitioner, Mr Omoke Kelvin and filed before the court by a Lagos lawyer,Chief Abdullai Tony Dania,the plaintiff company Great Nigeria insurance Plc averred that the defendant was not served with any hearing notice and was not
served with the judgment in issue, she only became aware when the
Plaintiffs actually took step to garnishee the defendants accounts with
some banks,consequently the non service of the processes of the suit from the date of commencement of the suit till when the Plaintiff attempted to execute the said judgment which amounted to an ambush.
The defendant averred further that the suit bearing suit number FHC/L/CS/901/2015 was originally pending before Justice muslim Hassan, the Plaintiff never served the Defendant any court process,
and surreptitiously applied for judgment on default, only to withdraw
the suit when the defendant filed counter affidavit in the said suit,
and the suit was thereafter struck out .
In the above mentioned suit FHC/L/CS/901/2015 which was struck
out by Justice Hassan, the Court served a hearing notice on
the Defendant, who thereafter applied and obtained copies of
the court processes filled in the suit; and the Defendant responded accordingly, and joined issues with the Plaintiff.
The Plaintiff/Respondent knows where to serve the
Defendant’s Counsel and yet neglected, failed and refused to
serve the Defendant’s counsel the processes emanating from
the instant suit. Subsequently, the Plaintiff initiated suit
FHC/L/CS/1381/2016 and for reasons best known to him failed, neglected and refused to serve on the Defendant any process either personally, through his lawyer or by pasting on any conspicuous part of the defendant’s premises.
The Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules 2009 allows any
party to bring an application of this nature at any time.
The Defendant having become aware of this suit is now
ready and willing to defend same in the spirit of fair hearing and
ultimately in the interest of justice.
The defendant contended that the judgment,and the execution of same which the applicant sought to be stayed was given in default of appearance of the Defendant,
due to the fact that the Plaintiff deceived the court with
the connivance of the ballif of the court that claimed to have served the
processes, including hearing notices on the defendants.
This case is a typical improper practice of deliberately
deceiving the court to obtain judgment in default of appearance by the
plaintiff such parties must not be allowed to
benefit from such act.
Plaintiff will not be prejudiced in anyway if this application is granted,consequently, the defendant urged the court to stop the execution of the default judgement.
