Is Waako Robina and Robina E. Waako, one and the same?
Well, the High Court believes so. Stanbic Bank had blocked a widow from accessing her late husband’s pension benefits because of the variations in her name on different documents.
Justice Joanita Bushara of the High Court in Jinja ruled that the bank should ignore the variations and give the widow access to the funds.
Here is how the legal dispute started.
On June 23, 2015, the High Court granted Waako Robina Elizabeth letters of administration empowering her to manage and wind up her late husband’s estate.
However, problems emerged when she attempted to access the deceased’s pension benefits.
There was a discrepancy in her name as used in the letters of administration and those appearing on her national ID.
On the letters of administration, she wrote, “Robina E. Waako,” but on the ID, her name appeared in full as “Waako Robina Elizabeth”.
That small variation forced Stanbic Bank to stop her from accessing the funds because it wanted to be sure she was one and the same person.
Thus, she went to court and wanted it to declare that Waako Robina and Robina E. Waako refer to one and the same person.
She also sought an order confirming that the names on her ID and on the letters of administration related to the same individual.
At the heart of the dispute was whether the abbreviated middle initial “E.” on the letters of administration created a legal distinction between her and the person named on her National ID.
Stanbic Bank did not challenge Waako’s evidence.
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Justice Bushara observed that the burden of proof lies with the party seeking judgment based on specific facts. Where the evidence is unchallenged, she said, it is presumed to be true.
She then turned to the doctrine of misnomer, which deals with mistakes in naming.
Citing Black’s Law Dictionary, 9th Edition, she noted that a misnomer is “a mistake in naming a person, place, or thing”.
“Cases of a misnomer are such that the person whose name is written is known and is the one whose name is intended to be written, only that it is written incorrectly or an entirely wrong name is written,” Justice Bushara said
She also relied on the Supreme Court decision in Sabric International Limited v Attorney General, which adopted the “reasonable reader’s test”.
That test asks: “How would a reasonable person receiving the document take it? If, in all the circumstances of the case and looking at the document as a whole, he would say to himself, ‘Of course it must mean me, but they have got my name wrong,’ then there is a case of mere misnomer.”
Applying these principles, she examined both Waako’s ID and the letters of administration.
From the documents and Waako’s statutory declaration, the court concluded that she was well known by the different variants of her name.
“There is no evidence of another individual to whom these records could refer,” Justice Bushara said.
The court warned that refusing the application would create injustice and declared that “Waako Robina and Robina E. Waako refer to one and the same person.
In the end, Justice Bushara directed Stanbic Bank Uganda to recognize Waako Robina as the lawful administrator of the estate of the late Waako Nabeta Neeri Hosai, the the and regardless of the name variations.
