Court Adjourns N56m Suit against Poultry Feeds Producers to Sept 26
Justice Ijem Onwuamaegbu of Onitsha High Court No. I has adjourned further hearing till Wednesday, September 26, this year in a N56,174,106 civil suit instituted against a Calabar, Cross River state based poultry feeds producers, Eastern Premier Feed Mills Limited (Top Feeds), by an Onitsha-based poultry farmer and poultry feeds distributor, Chidozie Obeleagu.
In her ruling shortly after hearing from Fidelis Obi Onyebueke, counsel to the defendant, Top Feeds and Kenneth Ogbue who held brief for Ike Odionu Esq., counsel to the plaintiff, Obeleagu, Justice Onwuamaegbu ordered the defendant to pay N10,000 cost to the plaintiff for filing their processes late in court.
She also frowned that the defendants were yet to pay the first N10,000 cost to the plaintiff as ordered by the court during the second hearing date of the matter, adding that if she had known that the first cost had not yet been paid, she would not have heard the matter for the second time.
Both the first N10,000 cost and the second one were prompted by oral applications made before the court by the plaintiff’s counsel asking the court to award the costs in his favour against the defendants for negligence and failing to file their briefs on time, adding that the cost would make them to sit up.
However, during the first hearing date, the defence counsel, Onyebueke raised an objection to the oral application for costs on the ground that he had already filed a motion on notice for the dismissal of the suit for lack of jurisdiction, adding that what he is praying the court to do was to grant him an extension of time, to enable him file his statement of defence and tidy up all the loose ends.
Also on the second hearing date, Onyebueke informed the court that he had already filed his statement of defence and would be ready to go on with the case, even as he would have preferred a short adjournment to enable him get fully prepared to defend his case.
In the suit, the plaintiff is asking the court to order the defendants to pay him a total sum of N56,174,106 for breach of contract and the cost of bags of poisonous feeds which the defendants produced and supplied to him in 2014 and which allegedly killed all his poultry birds in his poultry farm and also killed poultry birds in his customers’ poultry farms.
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