Contract - Settlement of claims by sanad - Effect thereof-

. Settlement of claim after defendant sucoes,sful in lower-
oourt trial. "

Estoppel - Plaintiff who. after beiAg,~8uccessful in lower
court trial. accepts money in settlement of all claims.
cannot use such offer of money to prove defendant had
been wrong in the suit.

Evidence - Expert - Handwriting testimony and comparison -
, Weight given to be determined by trial court.

Evidence - Settlement - Sa.nad made by defendant to settl,e claim
after defendant successful in lower court trial - Whether
 admissible as evidence of liability- Weight to be given
thereto.

Plaintiff claimed that she had pledged gold worth LEo17
with defendant to secure a debt which was originally nearly
LE.8, but that when later she tendered the unpaid portion '
of the debt defendant refused and denied the existence

bf the transaction. ' At trial plaintiff was able to pro-
,duce no better evidence of the transaction than a few
unsigned scraps of paper purporting to be receipts, and

the District Judge dismissed the suit. Immediately
thereafter, however, plaintiff now alleges, defendant
offered her LE.7 to settle her claim. Plaintiff acc-

epted it in settlement of 'all her claims but asserts

that in truth she accepted it only to be able to prove
defendant had been wrong in the suit. On application for
revision plaintiff now, urges that th~ sanad embodying the
settlement be admitted as fur~her evidence of defendant's
liability.

Held: Plaintiff is bound by her statement that she acc-

~pted the LE.7 in settlement of ail claims. The law
binds people to what they do and say to each other and '
any men tal reserva tion$' to the contrary are ineffective~'
Moreover, :4l this case, ,the sanad does not add much to
plaintiff's case: defendant may deny the whole matter
making it once again her word against his, and the terms
of the sanad really seem to support his case - tha t he was'
owed mone1.' by her, IlOt that Q.e ow.ed money to her.

Revision

January 15.;,;.1947. Cumingsl"C.J.: In this suit-plaintiff,

Batoul Mohamed El Sheikh claimed that she had pledged gold worth

LE.17 with defendant El Bedawi Farah Omar

LE.7.898~/ms of which she afterwa~ds paid

balance due from her LE.5.898m/ms, and that when she tendered

that sum and ask~d for the return of her gold the d·lfendant re-
fused and denied that she had pledged any gold'\!ith him. It was
for Batoul to prove her. claim. At the hearing before the District
Judge, Batoul had besides her own statement, nothing but a small
piece of paper which purported to be a receipt for the gold given
by the defendant. This ~eceipt was unsigned. Batoul first said
that the receipt was written by defendant's son Cmar but later,
after attempts were made to compare Omar's writing with that on
the receipt, Batoul altered her story and said that the writer

was someone else whom she did not know. There was nothing else

to help as proof except that Batoul also produced another piece

of wri ting which appears to be in the same pencil as her receipt
and perhaps written by the same person. She claimed that this

was obtained from the defendant ever another matter. The defen-

dant, however, was not even asked whether he admitted that the
other writing came from him; if he had denied it Batoul had no
other proof t~at it had come f'rom bim. And even if defendant

had admitted it, I still doubt whether any reliable cor..parision
could have been made between it and the disputed receipt as

there is little writin~ on both and we have no great experts on
handwriting. The District Judge found that Batoul had not proved
her claim and -that decision was upheld by the, Judge of the High
Court. No Court of Appeal could say that those judges were wrong.
This application for revision must therefore be dismissed unless

there is some fresh matter.

Batoul has raised one fresh matter to me and that is that '
she claims that immediately after. the Judge of the High Court
d,istnissed her appeal she was approached by the defendant who off-

ered her LE.7 to settle her claim; she says that she accepted the

LE.7 and told defendant that she accepted it in settlement of
all th-,,4,r' claims bu t sh~ says that she did not re~IIY mean to                                                                                                                                                                            ,

settle her claim but in truth accepted the money in order to be

able'to prove that the defendant had been, in the, wrong in the
suit. When asked if she has any proof of thi~ allegation she says
that besides her husband and son there we'e present fo~r pe~8ons
brought by the defendant as witnesses but she does not know any

of them and she produce_ a sanad unsigned on whioh --18 wri tten no-t