A consent judgment was entered between the Respondent and
the Appellants in a suit in which the Respondent was claiming payment of
specified sums of money arising from an overdraft facility extended to the
Appellants. After entering the consent judgment, the High Court adjourned the
matter for setting terms of payment. Later the Appellants instituted a suit
claiming, among other things, a declaration that the Appellants were induced to
execute the deed of settlement by coercion/duress and undue influence and that
the said deed of settlement was null and void and it be adjudged cancelled and
the order of settlement given by the High Court be vacated. The Appellants also
prayed for an order that the civil case pending before the High Court to
proceed from the stage it had reached before the order of settlement was
recorded. In its preliminary objection the Respondent said that the suit was
improperly instituted and was an abuse of the court process; the court had no
jurisdiction to reconsider a deed of settlement already adjudicated upon by the
court with the consent of the parties thereto present and fully represented
before the said court; and that the court could not reopen, rescind or
otherwise vary its own decision by way of another suit. The trial judge upheld
the objection. The Appellants were dissatisfied with the decision and appealed
to the Court of Appeal which considered how a consent judgment may be
challenged.