The High Court dismissed claims by Charles Barrett and Richard Lonergan against solicitor Philip Joyce, ruling that the pleaded claims were bound to fail because of the limitation period, absolute privilege and the absence of essential elements for contract and misrepresentation claims.
In a judgment delivered on 23 March 2018, Mr Justice Hunt granted Mr Joyce’s application under Order 19, Rule 28 of the Rules of the Superior Courts to dismiss the claims as frivolous and vexatious in the legal sense. He did not decide the application under the court’s inherent jurisdiction.
The plaintiffs alleged that an affidavit Mr Joyce filed in March 2013 during related judicial review proceedings contained false and misleading statements that damaged their reputations. They also alleged breach of contract and misrepresentation. Mr Joyce acknowledged that paragraph 9 of the affidavit was inaccurate, but said the errors were unintentional and not motivated by malice. The judgment records that the plaintiffs had successfully resisted the earlier application to set aside their leave to seek judicial review.
The court held that the defamation claims were issued too late. The affidavit was filed on 28 March 2013, while the plaintiffs’ plenary summons was not issued until 28 September 2015. The judge said the claim had to be brought within one year, subject to a court-ordered extension of no more than a further year, and there was no evidence of such an extension.
The judge also held that the statements complained of were made by a legal representative in court proceedings and fell within the statutory defence of absolute privilege. Even assuming the pleaded facts could be proved, the defamation claims had no prospect of success on that basis too.
The contract claim failed because there was no direct contractual relationship between Mr Joyce and the plaintiffs. The misrepresentation claim also failed: the judge said the pleaded facts did not show a contract induced by a representation or pleaded loss of the kind required for an actionable claim. He noted that the inaccurate statements had not induced the judge in the judicial review proceedings to decide against the plaintiffs.
The court did not resolve the parties’ competing accounts of the other challenged affidavit statements. It also said the complaint about access to a digital audio recording could not constitute or contribute to a known cause of action. The judge noted Mr Joyce’s evidence that the recording system was not operating at the relevant Circuit Court hearing, an account he said was not contradicted.
The judgment said the plaintiffs could seek to have the disputed paragraph struck out in the still-pending judicial review proceedings. It also called for those proceedings to reach a speedy conclusion. The dismissal was of the claims in this action; the judgment did not decide the underlying judicial review.