EDOZIE, J.S.C. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): The material facts that gave rise to this case are undisputed. The appellant, a civil engineering construction company in the process of the execution of a road construction project, entered in the respondent's farmland to excavate large quantities of earth thereby creating four large burrows or pits referred to by the parties as craters. In consequence, the respondent as plaintiff sued the defendant/appellant in the Kaduna High Court claiming reliefs formulated in paragraph 24 of the amended statement of claim in the following terms:
"24 Whereof the plaintiff claims from the defendant the following:
(a) General damages of five million naira (N5,000,000.00) for trespass, loss of use and mischief caused or done to the economic trees planted by the plaintiff.
(b)That the defendant to pay the plaintiff the sum of seventy million seven hundred and nine thousand, ninety seven naira (N70,709;097.00) being the cost of filling with laterite t…