QUESTION ONE
Lydia is a young lady with many talents. She has been able to transform her talents into profitable businesses
which she does for a living. One of her many talents which she has been able to develop into a successful
business is sewing. She learnt to sew at a very tender age and she makes dresses for both men and women. She
decided to commercialize the sewing three years ago when she opened a big fashion shop at the West-Hills Mall
where she sells her clothing. She owns a big shop where she has hired the services of tailors and seamstresses
who sew to supply her shop at the mall. She gets her fabrics from some selected suppliers in Ghana and China.
She has a trade agreement with these suppliers such that she settles the cost of the fabrics two months after
supply. Lydia normally uses SWIFT transfer system to transfer the money owed to the Chinese suppliers and
cheque to settle the Ghanaian suppliers. Two months ago, Lydia received some supplies from her Ghanaian
suppliers which cost GH9,000. She signed a blank cheque, gave it to her assistant, Mercy, to complete the other
details of the cheque. Lydia trusted her assistant so much because she always allowed her to complete cheques
and paid into the accounts of her suppliers. In completing the details of this particular cheque, Mercy, made the
amount in figures and in words, GH19,000 instead of GH9,000. She sent the cheque for withdrawal and left
town with the money immediately. Lydia received an alert from the bank in the evening informing her of the
GH19,000 withdrawal made. She became furious because she had ordered for the withdrawal of GH9,000. She
tried reaching Mercy on her cell phone but to no avail. She went to the bank the next morning to file a formal
complaint. She made it clear to the bank that she only ordered the withdrawal of GH9,000 not GH19,000. The
bank explained to Lydia that they only allowed the amount on the cheque because when they did their
verification, everything was accurate. Lydia was very mad at the bank for not confirming payment before they
paid out the money but the bank reminded Lydia of the instruction, she had already given to the bank about
confirmation of payment only when the cheque is above GH20,000. Lydia was still not convinced and blamed
the bank for not performing its responsibility with reasonable care and skill. Before leaving the banking hall,
Lydia threatened to sue the bank for failing to perform its duty with reasonable care and skill.
Required
Advise Lydia on the legal position of the matter at stake.
