The High Court ordered the production of documents exchanged with public relations firm Reputation Inc., engineering method statements, a letter, meeting minutes and an engineer’s email in a commercial dispute over alleged pyrite-related damage to houses in three north Dublin estates. The court upheld privilege claims for the other document groups challenged in the application.
The ruling concerned an application by the first and fifth defendants, Irish Asphalt Limited and Linstock Limited, seeking inspection of documents the plaintiffs had withheld as privileged. The court considered 549 documents identified in two affidavits. The case had already been heard for more than 50 days in the Commercial Court, but the judge said that background was not material to this application.
The wider dispute concerns infill supplied for the construction of 681 houses in the Drynam, Beaupark and Myrtle estates. The plaintiffs say excessive pyritic content in the infill expanded and caused floor heave and cracking. The defendants dispute that their material caused the problems and allege that defects resulted from negligence or contributory negligence in construction. Those positions describe the parties’ cases, not findings made in this privilege ruling.
Mr Justice William M. McKechnie found that documents passed between the plaintiffs and Helsingor Limited remained protected by common interest privilege. He also held that photographs of affected properties had been created principally in the context of litigation, following legal advice, and were privileged. Draft communications to HomeBond and minutes of meetings involving its representative were also protected. The court said those drafts differed from documents covered by an earlier order requiring production.
The judge rejected the privilege claim for documents exchanged with Reputation Inc. He found that the firm’s role was public relations and that the material before him did not attract legal professional privilege. He stressed that documents given to a public relations adviser are not automatically unprivileged; the result depends on the circumstances.
The court upheld privilege for internal Menolly spreadsheets and charts, Golder and DBFL material, homeowner correspondence tables and 14 internal Menolly emails or letters. It found that the underlying material summarised in the spreadsheets and charts was already available to the defendants.
The judge also ordered production of a 2004 letter and meeting minutes, an email from a Menolly engineer, and method statements describing remedial works. The engineer’s email was identified as document EM3542P. The ruling decided whether the contested documents could be withheld on privilege grounds; it did not resolve the underlying dispute about the cause of the house damage.