Caribbean Welding Supplies Ltd v Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago)

In detinue, once goods have been returned and their return accepted, the claimant ordinarily recovers damages for detention, not the goods’ full value. Those damages may include depreciation caused by the detention, even where the depreciation equals the goods’ market value because they were returned with no or nominal value. Detinue remains primarily an action for return of goods. An appellate court’s statutory powers must remain within the jurisdiction of the court below and the application decided there.

Police unlawfully detained an excavator owned by the appellant and returned it before judgment. The High Court awarded damages for depreciation and aggravated damages, but dismissed the claim for lost rental income. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on rental income but, without a respondent’s notice, purported to set aside delivery orders and ordered the appellant to return the excavator to the State under section 39 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act. The appeal concerned the Court of Appeal’s jurisdiction, the correctness of the return order, and the quantification of appellate costs.

1. Jurisdiction. Section 39(1)(a) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act requires the Court of Appeal to identify the application before the High Court and the order which the High Court could competently have made in the circumstances. Section 39(2) does not enlarge that jurisdiction. Section 39(3) assists only where an appealable interlocutory order directly or incidentally involved a decision on the point of appeal: Hannays v Baldeosingh [1992] 1 WLR 395. The damages application could not have resulted in an order requiring the appellant to deliver the excavator to the Attorney General. The earlier order did not involve a decision on the alleged double recovery. The Court of Appeal therefore lacked jurisdiction to make the return order and also erred by setting aside orders which the High Court had never made.
2. Detinue and damages. Detinue may result in judgment for the value of the chattel and detention damages, for return or value and detention damages, or for return and detention damages: General and Finance Facilities Ltd v Cooks Cars (Romford) Limited [1963] 1 WLR 644. Once goods have been returned and their return accepted, the judgment is ordinarily confined to damages for detention. Detention damages compensate actual loss and may include substitute-hire costs, lost income, market-value depreciation, or other depreciation, depending on the evidence: Brandeis Goldschmidt & Co Ltd v Western Transport Ltd [1981] QB 864; Davis v Oswell (1837) 7 C & P 804; Strand Electric and Engineering Co Ltd v Brisford Entertainments Ltd [1952] 2 QB 246; Williams v Archer (1847) 5 CB 318. An award equal to the asset’s original market value is not double recovery if it represents depreciation leaving the returned asset with no or nominal value.
3. Proprietary rights. Detinue is primarily an action for return of goods. The owner remains entitled to retain possession, however badly the goods have been damaged. The appellant owned the excavator and the State had no legal basis for receiving it.
4. Costs. The challenge to the costs order was a new point raised for the first time before the Board. Applying its usual practice, the Board dismissed that part of the appeal.

The appeal was allowed in relation to the order requiring return of the excavator to the State, and that order was set aside. The appeal concerning appellate-cost quantification was dismissed.

• Privy Council — In [2024] UKPC 7, allowed the appeal against the order requiring return of the excavator to the State, set that order aside, and dismissed the appeal concerning appellate-cost quantification.
• Court of Appeal of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago — On 9 September 2020, dismissed the appellant’s appeal concerning lost rental income, purported to set aside delivery orders, ordered return of the excavator to the State, and ordered costs.
• High Court — On 1 June 2018, awarded TT$1,328,320 in detinue damages and TT$150,000 aggravated damages, and dismissed the claim for lost rental income.