Khatoun Ent. Ltd. v. United (Nig.) Textiles [2014] 18 NWLR (Pt. 1438) 1 at 24, paras. B-C, per Adefope-Okojie, JCA:
“…The fact that a case is barred by statute is no reason to discountenance the documents which the court relied upon in proving the bar from being used to validate other claims.
As the trial Judge held, what was barred is the right of action and not the documents by which the statute bar is proved.”
Blogger’s Note:
The basis for the above decision is that in a suit, there may be general heads of claim. While one of the claims may be statute-barred, the others may not be. Therefore, the Court has the power to decline jurisdiction over the statute-barred claim but rightly assume jurisdiction over the others.
More so, a particular piece of document can be validly used to prove more than one claim. So, if upon perusing the document, the Court finds that a particular claim is statute-barred, it does not prevent the Court to use the same document to consider other claims which are not statute-barred.
