The Supreme Court has allowed a solicitor’s appeal on whether objections to disciplinary proceedings could be considered in a statutory appeal, while reserving the merits of those objections and the final orders for further submissions.
The case concerns Barry Sheehan, a solicitor who represented Bernard and Viola Bingham in a medical negligence claim arising from their son’s death. A dispute over fees and the return of client files led to complaints to the Law Society and, in 2014, a complaint to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
The SDT found misconduct on one allegation: that Sheehan threatened to destroy the file unless the Binghams settled his claimed costs, despite a Circuit Court order dismissing his claim. It did not find misconduct on a second allegation concerning access to the file for a Supreme Court appeal. In July 2016, the Tribunal censured him and ordered him to pay €5,000 to the Compensation Fund, as well as up to €750 to the Binghams for attendance costs.
The High Court rejected Sheehan’s challenge to the Tribunal’s jurisdiction, and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision. He argued in the Supreme Court that his statutory appeal could include two objections: that the complaint was res judicata because it had been raised before, and that a previous complaint to the Independent Adjudicator barred the Binghams from applying to the Tribunal under section 7(1) of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act 1960.
In a judgment delivered by Justice Susan Dunne, the Supreme Court distinguished those arguments. It said res judicata is ordinarily a defence that asks whether the same matter was already decided, rather than a question of the Tribunal’s jurisdiction. The Court also treated section 7(1) as a gateway provision that could go to jurisdiction. It held that the existence of a possible judicial review route did not mean the objections had to be pursued only that way; they could be considered in the statutory appeal.
The Court therefore disagreed with the High Court and Court of Appeal on that point and allowed the appeal. It did not, however, decide whether either objection was correct. The judgment records that the Tribunal considered the later complaint to follow events after the Circuit Court proceedings, and that the Independent Adjudicator’s 2009 review concerned the Law Society’s handling of an earlier complaint. The Supreme Court said it would hear further submissions on the orders to be made and on resolving the remaining issues.