The High Court has refused a request by the defendant in a mortgage dispute to amend its defence to argue that the plaintiff’s claim was statute-barred.
Mr Justice Robert Eagar delivered the judgment on 24 November 2017. The appeal concerned a Circuit Court order refusing the defendant permission to add a plea under the Statute of Limitations Act 1957 to its defence, filed in September 2011.
The plaintiff’s civil bill, issued in January 2011, claimed that she accepted a €16,000 endowment mortgage offer in 1994 for a dwelling house at 1 Davitt Street, Limerick. She alleged that the loan was not secured by an endowment policy as agreed, and that she discovered this in 2009. She also alleged breach of contract, negligence and breach of duty. She sought damages and other relief. These were claims made by the plaintiff; the judgment did not determine their merits.
The defendant’s application to amend was made in 2016. Its solicitor said the limitation plea should have been included in the original defence, but that the delay in bringing the application followed a statutory stay of proceedings and the absence of substantive steps while the stay was in place.
The judgment recounts that the plaintiff obtained an order in January 2016 lifting the stay for the proceedings. The stay had applied to proceedings against Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) following its special liquidation. The plaintiff had told the court that IBRC had agreed to sell her mortgage to Shoreline Residential Ltd, which transferred its administration to Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) Ltd. She also said Pepper had threatened possession proceedings. Those statements appeared in her affidavit concerning the stay; they were not findings on this appeal.
Justice Eagar concluded that the delay, linked to the collapse of the original defendant, had prejudiced the plaintiff’s ability to present her case. Applying the approach in *Woori Bank v KDB Ireland Ltd*, the court considered that prejudice arising from a late change to the pleadings. It refused the defendant’s application to amend the defence to insert a statute of limitations plea.
The ruling addressed only whether that amendment should be allowed. It did not decide whether the plaintiff’s claim, or any part of it, was in fact statute-barred.