The High Court has dismissed John Sheridan’s claim against Allied Irish Banks plc for records relating to Emerald Contract Cleaners, ruling that the case was hopeless and could not be repaired by amendment.
Mr Justice Allen made the order under Order 19, rule 28 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. Sheridan’s plenary summons, issued in September 2018, alleged negligence and sought an order directing AIB to release records. The judge said the only relief sought was discovery, despite the negligence claim stated in the summons and statement of claim.
Sheridan claimed standing as executor of his late mother Pauline Sheridan and administrator of the estate of James Vincent Sheridan. He sought records concerning two cleaning companies and personal accounts said to be held in New York and Ireland. The dispute rested on an alleged transfer of IR£2,112,210 to a company account.
The judgment recounted earlier proceedings over that alleged sum. In 1996, the High Court dismissed a claim based on a Revenue form bearing the figure 2112210. The court had heard evidence from a Revenue officer that the number was a fictional figure used to check computer programmes, not money transferred. In the present judgment, Mr Justice Allen concluded that no such IR£2,112,210 existed.
The judge also found that James Vincent Sheridan died in 1971, aged 19, and could not have been the person named in company filings made from 1975 onwards. The man involved in the cleaning business, the judgment said, was his uncle, James Valentine Sheridan. Company CRO 22322 was struck off and dissolved in 1999. A separate action by Sheridan against Emerald Contract Cleaners (Ireland) Limited and its officers had already been struck out as an abuse of process; an application for leave to bring that action again was refused in August 2019.
The court had refused Sheridan’s discovery motion in May 2019, finding that it sought the substantive relief of the action on an interlocutory basis and that an action brought solely to obtain discovery was not permitted. That refusal was a prior decision in the case. On the defendant bank’s application to dismiss the action, Mr Justice Allen held that the claim was frivolous and vexatious and irremediable, and dismissed it. The judgment does not order AIB to release records.