The High Court has declined Kilarden Investments Limited’s application to revisit parts of an earlier judgment in its dispute with Kirwans (Galway) Limited and guarantors John P. Grealish and Paul Grealish. It also ordered the guarantors to pay the plaintiff’s costs, excluding the cost of the 21 June 2013 hearing.
The remaining issues followed the court’s substantive judgment of 10 May 2013, which awarded the plaintiff €199,435.60 against the guarantors. The plaintiff asked the court to reconsider its treatment of future rent damages and what it described as mistakes in the earlier judgment. The court heard submissions on those issues on 21 June.
The plaintiff’s solicitors had argued that the parties understood the actuarial figures in a revised schedule were agreed, and that an alternative calculation in the report was inappropriate and should be disregarded. The judge reviewed the hearing record and concluded that this distinction had not been made clear to the court. The plaintiff had offered to provide a further report or call the actuary, but the judge had already decided that justice, fairness and common sense did not warrant giving the plaintiff another opportunity to prove the future rent claim.
The judge explained that the court could not rely on the actuarial report to quantify the plaintiff’s loss of future rent. The earlier damages award covered amounts the court could quantify while the guarantors remained liable under the guarantee up to 4 August 2011, when notice requiring them to take a lease was served. The court said it could not quantify the alleged loss arising after that date from their failure to take the lease, which was to run until 21 February 2019.
The judge said the explanation was an addendum to the earlier judgment, not an exercise of jurisdiction to reopen it. The plaintiff had not met the “strong reasons” test for revisiting a judgment. The judge said an appeal was the appropriate route if the earlier decision was wrong.
On costs, the guarantors relied on earlier settlement and mediation proposals, their financial circumstances and existing orders. The judge held that the plaintiff’s refusal to settle or mediate did not remove its entitlement to costs, and that the guarantors’ financial circumstances were not a reason to depart from the usual rule that costs follow the event. The costs order applies to the second and third defendants, but excludes the 21 June hearing, for which there is no order as to costs.