The High Court said a woman should bear her uncle’s costs of an injunction application she chose not to pursue, after deciding that he had succeeded in resisting the application. The court made no order on the injunction itself and stated that its view on costs was provisional.
Ms Justice Nessa Cahill said the plaintiff had abandoned the application after two rounds of affidavits, without an intervening event, concession, undertaking or agreement from the defendant. She had gained no benefit from bringing it, the judge said. The court would not speculate about how the injunction application might have been decided.
The underlying dispute concerns a home at 24 Baldoyle Road, where the plaintiff and two of her children lived with the defendant from 2011 or 2012. The plaintiff says she spent about €224,000 on renovations, adapted the premises for her pottery business, paid the utility bills and cared for her uncle. She claims they agreed that she could live there, acquire an interest in the property and ultimately inherit it. Those claims remain disputed; this judgment addressed only the costs of the injunction application.
The defendant told the plaintiff by text on 12 September 2024 that she was to move out. Two days later, he told her to remove her belongings within four weeks. After the plaintiff’s solicitor challenged the eviction and threatened an injunction, the plaintiff issued proceedings and her injunction application on 10 October 2024. The defendant’s affidavits disputed her account and opposed the application.
The plaintiff argued that conflicts in the affidavits meant the injunction could not properly be decided at an interim hearing, and that its costs should be reserved for trial. Justice Cahill rejected the suggestion that the court could assume the application would have failed and use that hypothetical outcome to reserve costs. She also distinguished cases where an application became unnecessary after an undertaking, concession or other intervening event.
The judge said the defendant had been “entirely successful” in resisting the injunction and had succeeded “in a real sense”. She considered it possible and just to decide costs at this stage, independently of whether Order 99, rule 2(3) applied to a discontinued application. She did not determine that question.
The judgment’s final paragraph records a provisional view that the plaintiff should be liable for the defendant’s costs. The matter was listed before Justice Cahill at 10.30am on 20 February 2025 for any further submissions, including on costs, and any case-management directions. The judgment does not record the outcome of that later hearing.