R. J. REYNOLDS INTERNATIONAL EXPORT, INC., Appellant, v. THE UNITED AFRICA COMPANY (LIBERIA), LTD., by and thru its General Manager, ELI HAIKAL, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM A RULING OF THE CHAMBERS JUSTICE DENYING THE PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI AND GRANTING A MOTION TO INTERVENE.

Heard: March 9, 1982. Decided: July 8, 1982.

1. Intervention generally is a matter of right which cannot be denied where the judgement of the court will affect the ultimate rights and interest of the applicant.
2. Intervention may be filed before the Supreme Court.
3. The granting of an application to intervene by the Chambers Justice is final, and hence appealable to the Court en banc.
4. The Supreme Court upon review of the records on appeal may affirm, reverse or render such other judgment as will in its opinion, best effectuate the administration of justice, equity and law.

From a ruling on the disposition of law issues dismissing the answer filed in an action of damages for infringement of letters patent, rendered by the Civil Law Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, defendant excepted and petitioned the Justice in Chambers for a writ of certiorari, which was heard and ruling reserved. During the pendency of the ruling, R. J. Reynolds International Export, Inc., of the United States of America, filed a motion to intervene before the Justice in Chambers to be made a party defendant in order to adequately represent its legal interest. The Justice in Chambers heard the motion and entered a twin ruling in which he denied the petition for certiorari and granted the motion to intervene to which ruling plaintiff/ respondent excepted and announced an appeal to the Full Bench. Intervenor moved the Court en banc to dismiss the appeal on grounds that the ruling granting the motion to intervene was interlocutory and therefore not appealable under the statute. Plaintiff contends that the motion to intervene should have been filed in the court below and not before the Chambers Justice; and that since the Chambers Justice had observed that the issues in the motion to intervene and the resistance thereto were mixed issues of law and facts, he should have referred the matter to the lower court.

The Supreme Court held that intervention is a matter of right and under appropriate circumstances, an application for same may be initiated before the Supreme Court; that the granting of a motion to intervene is final, and hence appealable. Accordingly, it denied the motion to dismiss, and affirmed the ruling of the Justice in Chambers but with modification that the intervenor be permitted to intervene in the action by filing a regular motion to intervene with an answer to the complaint for the trial court to pass upon same.

Peter Amos George and Joseph Dennis appeared for respondents/appellant. Philip J. L. Brumskine and Daniel Draper appeared for respondents/appellant.

MR. JUSTICE SMITH delivered the opinion of the Court.

The facts as disclosed by the records in this case are that, the United Africa Company (Liberia) Ltd., by and thru its General Manager, Eli Haikal of the City of Monrovia, Liberia, sued out an action of damages against R. J. Reynolds Tobacco International S.A. 12 – 14 Chemin Rieu, 1211 Geneva 17, Switzerland, and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Corporation, Winston Salem, North Carolina, U. S. A., for infringement of letters patent, in the People’s Civil Law Court for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, Montserrado County, Republic of Liberia. The trial court heard the issues of law as raised in the pleadings and the motion to dismiss, and ruled thereon by dismissing defendants’ answer and ruling them on bare denial of the plaintiff’s complaint. The defendants being dissatisfied with the ruling of the court below, petitioned the Chambers Justice for a writ of certiorari. The Chambers Justice heard the petition, reserved his ruling, and suspended the matter. During the pendency of the ruling, R. J. Reynolds International Export, Inc., of the United States of America filed a motion to intervene before the Justice in Chambers, stating in substance that R. J. Reynolds Inter-national Export, Inc., the intervenor, is the majority shareholder in the defendant companies, that is, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, U.S.A., and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Int, S.A., Geneva; that the facts and circumstances out of which the action of damages had been instituted against the petitioners in certiorari, defendants in the court below, are known to the intervenor; and that its rights and interest as majority shareholder in these companies will be affected by the judgment sought by the respondent company in certiorari, plaintiff in the court below; that the motion to intervene was, therefore, being filed so as to be made a party defendant in order to adequately represent its legal interest. The following is the prayer of the intervenor, which we deem necessary to quote hereunder for the benefit of this Opinion:

“Wherefore, applicant respectfully appeals to the kind discretion of Your Honour and asks for an order to the court below, permitting them to intervene in the above entitled action, directing that the summons and complaint adding applicant thereto as a party defendant, and allowing applicant to serve an answer within ten days after the entry of your order granting this motion and for such other further relief as may be just, proper and equitable.”

The Chambers Justice heard this motion of the intervenor as resisted by the respondent, and entered a twin ruling in which he denied the petition for a writ of certiorari and granted the motion to intervene. For the benefit of this opinion, we also quote a relevant portion of the Chamber Justice’s ruling as it relates to the motion to intervene:

“The motion to intervene as well as the remaining counts of the resistance are mixed law and facts and should not be resolved without first hearing evidence and we reiterate here that we are forbidden from hearing additional evidence on this level. Under the circumstances, the court below is instructed to permit the intervenor to be made a party defendant and participate in this case as such.”

It is from this ruling that the respondent company made the following record:

“At this stage, respondent’s counsel excepts to Your Honour’s ruling as far as to the part that affects the intervention of R. J. Reynolds of the United States of America, and appeals therefrom; and respectfully submits.”

The Chambers Justice having granted the appeal, the appellee, intervenor before the Chambers Justice, filed this motion, praying the Court en banc to dismiss the appeal as announced by the respondent and to affirm the ruling of the Chambers Justice on the ground that such a ruling was interlocutory and is therefore not appealable under the statute.

To this motion to dismiss, appellant filed a six-count resistance, contending in counts three and four thereof that the Justice’s ruling on the motion to intervene was in the nature of a final judgment and not an interlocutory ruling, because it puts finality to the motion to intervene by instructing the court below to make the intervenor a party defendant; and that the only remedy left with the respondents in certiorari was to appeal to the Full Bench for the review and correction of the said ruling; and, hence, the motion to dismiss the appeal should be denied. The appellant also contends in count five of its resistance to the motion to dismiss that the motion to intervene should have been filed before the court below and not before the Chambers Justice; that the Chambers Justice granted intervenor’s motion without passing upon the legal issues raised in the resistance; and that since the Chambers Justice himself had observed that the issues in the motion and the resistance were mixed issues of law and facts, he should have referred the entire issue to the court below. The respondent, therefore, prays that the Court denies the motion to dismiss with costs against the appellee. This is the case before us for determination.

The following is a summary of the issues, which in our opinion, are necessary to the fair and impartial determination of the case:

1.1. Whether or not the intervenor, at that stage of the proceedings could file a motion to intervene before the Justice in Chambers or the motion should have been filed before the trial court?

1.2. Whether or not the ruling of the Chambers Justice was interlocutory and, therefore, not appealable under the statute, for which the motion to dismiss should be granted? and

1.3. Whether or not the Chambers Justice could under the circumstances grant the motion to intervene and instruct the trial court to make intervenor a party defendant in the damages suit, having observed in his ruling that the motion to intervene and the resistance thereto raised mixed issues of law and facts which he was forbidden to hear and determine, originally?

Before resolving these issues which in our opinion are relevant and necessary to the fair determination of the case before us, we wish to mention in passing that our statute and the rules of our Court are silent on the procedural steps to be taken by a party who is dissatisfied and wishes to appeal from a ruling of a Chambers Justice to the full bench for review. According to our statute, a final decision by a Supreme Court Justice in a proceeding in certiorari, mandamus, or prohibition, may be appealable to the Supreme Court en banc. The appeal shall be heard and determined immediately in or out of term time. Civil Procedure Law, Rev. Code 1: 16.26. As to how the appeal is perfected and gets before the Full Bench and the means by which the appellant presents his points of contention, as in the case of an appeal from a trial court of records for the information of the Court en banc, are all silent. However, Part 3, Rule 13, page 46, of the Rules of our Court leaves the condition under which a party may appeal from the decision of the Chambers Justice completely with the discretion of the Justice in Chambers, because the rules state, and we quote:

“Upon a hearing had under such alternative writ, an absolute writ may be issued directing the performance, or non-performance, or cessation of any act, which to the Court or Justice therefore may seem just, legal or equitable, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court upon such conditions as the Justice may prescribe” (emphasis ours).

And so, in respect to the procedural steps in bringing up appeal before the Full Bench, we have no guideline. In this case, we have before us the chambers record containing the announcement of an appeal as made by the appellant in this case before the Full Bench and the granting of the appeal by the Chambers Justice as noted in the minutes of Court. Also in the trial file are the motion to dismiss the appeal and the resistance to the motion as filed by both appellant and appellee, respectively.

Because the averments of the six-count motion and the six-count resistance embodied the points on which the appeal was taken, and not confined only to the ground on which the motion to dismiss was filed, counsel for both parties argued both the appeal and the motion to dismiss; and when pressed with questions from the Bench as to their position, the counsel submitted to the Court’s discretion so long the intervenor is permitted to intervene and the respondent/company is allowed to resist in the court below.

Under the circumstances, we shall proceed to deal with the issues as summarized hereinabove, which in our opinion will settle the question of the appeal and the motion to dismiss. The ruling in the certiorari proceedings not having been appealed from, the said ruling of the Chambers Justice in respect thereto stands undisturbed.

We shall now come to the first of the three issues as summarized hereinabove for our determination, that is, the venue of the motion to intervene. Generally, intervention is a matter of right. Under certain circumstances, a third party whose rights and interest may be materially affected by a judgment in a case pending in a court may be permitted to intervene prior to the rendition of judgment. Johns v. Witherspoon, [1946] LRSC 3; 9 LLR 152 (1946).

In Johnson v. Yarkpawolo, [1971] LRSC 67; 20 LLR 503 (1971), the Supreme Court has held that under appropriate circumstances, an application for intervention may be initially brought before the Supreme Court. In the instant case, the motion to intervene was filed before the Chambers Justice where the case had been removed by a writ of certiorari. The trial court therefore had no authority to entertain any such motion in a case which had been removed from its jurisdiction over said case, it could not entertain such motion, and the third party on the other hand, whose rights and interest may be materially affected by a judgment of the court, could not have waited until the judgment was rendered before filing a motion to intervene. The case having been removed to the Chambers of the People’s Supreme Court by a writ of certiorari, the proper venue of the motion to intervene was before the Justice in Chambers and not before the trial court which had been divested of its jurisdiction by means of the writ of certiorari. The contention that the motion to intervene should have been filed in the trial court is, therefore, not sustained.

The appellee contends in the motion to dismiss that the ruling of the Justice in Chambers was interlocutory and, therefore, not appealable. We are not in agreement with this legal concept. R. J. Reynolds International, Inc. of the United States of America is neither a party to the damages suit nor the certiorari proceedings. The motion to intervene was an independent proceeding which originated before the Justice in Chambers, who granted the motion to intervene. The granting of the application to intervene left nothing to be done by the Justice, and, therefore, the ruling, in that respect was final, because it puts finality to the application that was pending before the Justice in Chambers. Any party who was dissatisfied with the said ruling had no other remedy but to appeal therefrom in order for the Court en banc to review the ruling and say whether or not the said motion should not have been granted. The ultimate rights of the parties were to intervene or not to intervene. The Chambers Justice, having granted the motion to intervene, the controversy was finally settled, and where any of the parties was dissatisfied with his ruling, appeal was the only remedy. A final judgment is one which disposes of the case, either by dismissing it before hearing is had upon its merits or after trial by rendering judgment either in favor of plaintiff or defendant. An interlocutory judgment is one which determines some preliminary or subordinate point or plea, or settles some step, question, or default arising out of the progress of the case, but does not adjudicate the ultimate rights of the parties. 25 CYC of Law and Procedure, Judgments, § 9. The ruling in Chambers having put finality to the ultimate rights of the parties as to whether or not a third party may intervene, said ruling was a final judgment and hence appealable. The motion to dismiss cannot, therefore, be granted, and it is hereby denied.

The last of the issues as summarized hereinabove is that of the Chambers Justice’s ruling instructing the trial court to make intervenor a party defendant to participate in the case as such, when indeed he had earlier observed in his ruling that there are mixed issues of law and facts which he was forbidden to hear. It is our observation that the said ruling did not allow space for the intervenor to file an answer to the complaint as requested in the application.

The purpose for which R. J. Reynolds International Export, Inc. of the United States of America filed the motion before the Justice in Chambers was for an order to the court below to permit the applicant to intervene in the damages suit so as to be made a party defendant to file an answer to the complaint within ten days as of the date of the ruling granting the request, thereby adequately representing its legal interest.

The granting by the Chambers Justice of the application to intervene was in harmony with our law. As has already been said in this opinion, intervention by a party in a case pending in court is a matter of right which cannot be denied where the judgment of the court will affect the ultimate rights and interests of the applicant. Civil Procedure Law, Rev. Code 1: 5.61.

The Chambers Justice having granted the application to intervene, should have given the necessary orders in keeping with the request of the applicant by directing the court below to allow the applicant to intervene in the cause of action by filing a motion to intervene and an answer to the complaint, subject to be resisted by the plaintiff and to file a reply when deemed necessary in keeping with practice and procedure in our courts, to enable the trial court to pass upon any issue which might have been raised in the pleadings. The portion of the Justice’s ruling which says that: “The court below is instructed to permit the intervener to be made a party defendant and participate in the case as such” seems to have left no room for the trial court to hear and decide those mixed issues of law and facts which he was forbidden to hear and decide, neither did the ruling leave room for the filing of an answer to the complaint as prayed for by the applicant, which answer might have raised issues of law that only the trial court can hear and decide, originally; rather, the ruling left room for the court to construe that the applicant was allowed by the ruling in Chambers as a party defendant to participate in the trial of the case as such, since the legal issues had already been disposed of by the trial court and the alternative writ of certiorari against the judge’s ruling on the law issues had been denied. This Court must therefore give such ruling as the Justice in Chambers should have given in granting the application to intervene; for, under the law, the appellate court to which an appeal is taken may reverse, affirm, or modify, wholly or in part, any judgment before it as to any party. Ibid, 1:51.17. In the case Williams and Williams v. Tubman, [1960] LRSC 47; 14 LLR 109 (1960), this Court held that: “The Supreme Court upon review of the record on appeal, may affirm, reverse or render such other judgment as will, in its opinion, best effectuate the administration of justice, equity and law.”

In view of all that has been said hereinabove and the citations of law in support of our position, it is our considered opinion that the ruling of the Chambers Justice granting the application to intervene be and the same is hereby confirmed with the following modification: that the appellee be permitted to intervene in the cause of action in the court below by filing a regular motion to intervene, simultaneously with an answer to the complaint for the lower court to pass upon same in keeping with law before going into the trial of the case. Costs against the petitioner in certiorari. And it is hereby so ordered.

Motion denied; ruling affirmed with modification.