The High Court has ruled that Nutgrove Sand and Gravel Limited held an exclusive oral licence to quarry limestone on land owned by James Sherlock and that Sherlock breached the agreement by obstructing the quarry’s operations. It dismissed his counterclaim but did not award damages to Nutgrove at this stage.
In a judgment delivered on 2 November 2018, Mr Justice David Keane found that Nutgrove and Sherlock were parties to the quarrying agreement for land known as the lower field at Kilmainham, Mountmellick, County Laois. The court accepted Nutgrove’s account that Sherlock was to receive €20 for each lorry load of limestone extracted, with no separate rent payable.
The judge found Sherlock breached the agreement by interfering with quarry operations in January 2012 and bringing them to a halt the following month. He also found that Sherlock later sold material from the quarry and damaged signs erected there by Nutgrove. The court rejected Sherlock’s claim that Nutgrove had underpaid him, finding that the evidence did not establish the amount of limestone extracted with sufficient certainty.
Sherlock’s counterclaim alleged, among other things, that Nutgrove and its directors had agreed to pay €1 per tonne and annual rent, and had caused damage through unauthorised quarrying and breaches of planning permission. The judge rejected the claim that compliance with every planning-permission condition was an implied term of the private agreement. He also dismissed the counterclaim in its entirety, including the requested relief under planning legislation.
The judgment addressed a separate application by Nutgrove to have Sherlock attached and committed for contempt over his refusal to allow access for remediation works agreed with Laois County Council. The judge found that the refusal breached the quarry agreement and an earlier interlocutory order restraining Sherlock from locking Nutgrove out. However, he held that the committal application was legally misconceived because the 2015 order made heads of agreement a rule of court; it did not make the settlement clause itself an order of the court. He left open whether a committal application based on the earlier 2012 order might have had a different position.
The court granted the permanent injunctions sought by Nutgrove, subject to further submissions on their terms. It said there was not enough evidence of loss or damage to award damages, also leaving that issue for submissions. The judge reserved a decision on whether further interlocutory injunctions were needed to facilitate the agreed restoration works.