The High Court has found a Navan firm of solicitors negligent in its handling of a land transfer that later exposed Patrick Darby to proceedings threatening the site on which he had built his family home.
Ms Justice Irvine ruled that Oliver Shanley and Company fell below the standard expected of prudent solicitors when approximately 3.5 acres at Hayestown, County Meath, were transferred as a gift from Bridie Bird to Darby in December 1998.
Darby had approached the solicitors, supplied the site map, paid the legal costs and intended to build his home on the land. The firm also acted for Bird. The court held that, given Bird's age, her dependence on the Darby family, the size of the gift and the uncertainty over her husband's attitude, a possible undue-influence challenge should have been foreseeable.
The judge found that Patrick Darby should have been advised to obtain separate legal representation. The solicitors should also have investigated Bird's reasons for the transfer and established her husband's position. Their handling of a later Family Home Protection Act declaration was described by the court as falling markedly short of prudent practice.
After Bird died in 1999, her husband William Bird challenged both the transfer and her 1997 will. Following his death, the litigation continued and was settled in 2007. Patrick Darby agreed to give up €70,000 of his inheritance, representing half the agreed value of the transferred site, as part of the settlement.
The court held that the loss arising from the challenge to the transfer was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the solicitors' negligence.
However, Patrick and his brother Declan did not succeed in their separate claims concerning preparation of Bird's will. Although the court identified failures in the solicitors' record-keeping and advice about a possible undue-influence challenge, it found that William Bird would probably have challenged the will regardless. Those failings therefore did not cause the brothers' reduced inheritances.
The judgment establishes liability in Patrick Darby's transfer claim, but does not state a final damages award in the text provided.