The High Court has refused an application by Highcross Bars Limited for security for costs in a personal injuries action brought by Niall Greene, who was injured in a glassing at the company’s Galway bar and restaurant in September 2013.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the judgment on 22 October 2015. The application was made under Order 29 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. The defendant argued that it had a strong defence and might be unable to recover its costs if it won, because Mr Greene was living and working in Dubai.
The court found that the company had established a stateable, prima facie defence on the merits, based on an affidavit from the venue’s general manager. It also found that Mr Greene was ordinarily resident outside Ireland. Although he was an Irish citizen with a permanent teaching contract and an address in Ireland, he was living and working in Dubai and spent his working week and weekends there. The judge preferred an approach based on where a person usually lives.
Those findings did not automatically entitle the company to security. The court retained discretion to refuse an order, and agreed that the key question was whether enforcing a future costs order against Mr Greene would be impossible or substantially more difficult or expensive than enforcing one against a plaintiff resident in Ireland or with sufficient assets here.
The court found that impossibility of recovery had not been established. Mr Greene had received money in a settlement with the individual who attacked him, and he held a permanent teaching contract, although he was then on leave. On the balance of probabilities, those circumstances gave the court a basis to conclude that recovery was not impossible.
The judge also considered the likely scale of High Court legal costs and Mr Greene’s present lack of cash to meet them. That lack of readily available money was not, in the court’s view, a justification for requiring security. The court said an order would create an unnecessary monetary obstacle to Mr Greene’s constitutional right of access to the courts.
The application was refused. The ruling concerned security for costs only; it did not decide the underlying personal injuries claim. Mr Greene had already settled his claim against the individual attacker and wished to continue his action against the company.