The High Court has refused Greenwich Project Holdings Limited’s application to reopen proceedings against Con Cronin, holding that the correspondence it sought to introduce would not have changed the court’s earlier decision. The court also ordered the proceedings struck out and directed the plaintiff to pay the defendant’s costs, with the entire order stayed for four weeks from its perfection.
In a judgment delivered on 3 March 2021, Ms Justice Niamh Hyland considered the plaintiff’s request to revisit a judgment of 20 January 2021. The plaintiff relied on correspondence from May to July 2014 concerning special condition 5 and planning permission. It said the material showed that its concerns existed before the proceedings began in September 2014.
The correspondence had been exhibited in an earlier motion concerning a lis pendens registered on the property, but it had not been opened to the judge at the hearing. In November 2018, Cross J. granted the defendant’s application to vacate the lis pendens.
The plaintiff argued that the earlier judgment had wrongly suggested it first considered the relevant matters only after an order by Jordan J. The judge rejected that reading. She said her criticism was that the plaintiff knew of the concerns in 2014 but did not address them in the proceedings until 2020, after the case was directed to be expedited. At that point, the plaintiff identified steps involving discovery, particulars and possible amendments to its pleadings.
Applying the principles discussed in Re McInerney Homes Ltd., the judge said new material must be credible and likely to have an important influence on the result, and ordinarily should not be admitted if it could have been put before the court with reasonable diligence. She concluded the correspondence would only confirm her existing understanding that the plaintiff had concerns in 2014 and should have acted on them earlier. It therefore could have no influence on the result, and the application failed the first part of the test. She did not decide whether the plaintiff could otherwise have justified introducing the material, given that it had not been opened or relied on in the earlier motion.
The court refused to reopen the proceedings and ordered them struck out. The plaintiff must pay the defendant’s costs of the proceedings, including reserved costs, the motion to strike out and the application to reopen, with the amount to be adjudicated if not agreed. The order, including costs, is stayed for four weeks from the date it is perfected to allow the plaintiff to appeal and seek an extension of the stay from the Court of Appeal.