Lauren bought a car from a dealership after she moved here. She found a great deal on a Toyota Corolla (Paid about $4000). After paying the dealer for the car and driving it for a couple days, the Nigerian woman that took the car to the dealer to be sold changed her mind and decided that she didn’t want to sell the car. Perhaps she realized she didn’t ask a high enough price, perhaps she sold her company car without permission…no one really knows why she changed her mind. After getting the police involved and threatening Lauren (who is a 3rd party and really should have no relevance in the case), she threatened to sue the car dealer and Lauren. And that she did.
Anyone with a normal brain wouldn’t think she has a case. She sold the car and the transaction was finalized. That was 5 months ago. 3 months after Lauren bought the car, she was served papers at her apartment by the plaintiff. She somehow found Lauren, tracked her down, and threw the papers at her porter after he wouldn’t tell her what room she was in. Unfortunately for Lauren, it was over a month after the case had been opened, so she didn’t have much time to get a crash course in “what to do if you get sued in Ghana”. Through a connection at her church, she found a Colonel in the military and he set her up with a lawyer.
Skip to Saturday…Lauren got a call while we were in Cape Coast saying she had to be in Court Monday morning. We met her lawyer on Monday and he explained that the plaintiff and her lawyer were trying to win the case on small technicalities, bribing, and lying. I got a taste of all of that during the day. The plaintiff filed paperwork on Friday and someone was probably bribed to have the court date set on Monday. Because of that, Lauren’s lawyer had to work on it over the weekend, submit papers very early Monday, and get to the court by 8 am.
To find the court room, we had to go to the central courthouse and look at the postings on the wall for that day. Since the date was set on Friday, the case wasn’t even posted. After a ton of scrambling around, we guessed which court house it was and drove there. Talk about a cluster...
The court room looked more or less like what you would expect…a judge up front, a row of lawyers seated closest. Behind the lawyers were all the people involved in cases being addressed that day. All lawyers and the judge had large black graduation like gowns, strange little white stringy collars, and powder wigs! The judge’s wig was by far the nicest but all the lawyers had little scrubby looking ones that were plopped on their head and would often fall off when they stood up or leaned their head too far to one side. Each little wig had a little crooked rat tail coming out the back. I found it so amusing and I wanted desperately to take photos in the court room but the last thing I would want to do is piss of Lauren’s judge. I did get a picture of Lauren and her lawyer (with the powder wig!) after the trial. Hope you enjoy it.
After they went through a couple other cases, it was Lauren’s turn. The lawyers addressed the judge as “My lord” each time they spoke. I felt like I was in some backwards British courtroom circa 1800. It was a bit hard to understand the interaction but I know that the plaintiff’s lawyer lied a few times to the judge, saying that they had served papers to the dealer involved in the case. Leslie called the dealer right after and he said had received no official papers that he was being sued (and this is 2 months after Lauren was informed).
The day was pointless. Basically the point of the day in court was to address the plaintiffs request to make a default judgment. Because Lauren showed up and said she had a defense, the request was denied. On Friday, Lauren has to go back to court to find out if her car will be taken away in order to preserve the vehicle while the trial continues. That would be a HUGE inconvenience to her. The car would end up sitting at the court house for months and would probably be used by police officers to run errands.
IF Lauren lost (which won’t happen), she would lose the car and get her money back. But she would have to pay all of the plaintiff’s lawyer fees AND pay the taxi fares of the plaintiff for the past 5 months.
We talked to the Colonel (lauren’s lawyer) for a bit after the trail, and he could only really laugh at the whole situation. He went into detail about many of the lawyers who lie and cheat/bribe the crooked system and get away with it. This is a very high up guy in the Ghanaian military and it was amazing to hear him so casually talk about how corrupt the judicial system is. He said he hoped that justice would prevail but that all you could really do is pray to God.
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