The High Court awarded Deirdre Sullivan €22,500 in damages after finding that debt collector Patrick McCartan had breached her constitutional rights through a sustained campaign of harassment at her home and by phone.
In a judgment delivered on 12 March 2013, Mr Justice Hogan awarded €15,000 in general damages and €7,500 in exemplary damages against McCartan, the third defendant. The hearing concerned damages following an earlier judgment; it did not decide how much Sullivan owed the building contractors for disputed work.
Sullivan had hired Gerard Boylan and Gerard Boylan Building Contractors Ltd in December 2011 to build an extension and carry out refurbishment work at her Clontarf home. She had paid €84,000 of the €91,250 initial contract sum by April 2012. The judgment said the parties disputed whether further work had been included in the original contract and whether Sullivan owed about €7,000, about €20,000 or nothing. Hogan said there was a legitimate argument about whether a debt existed and its amount.
The contractors put the dispute in the hands of McCartan. The judgment recounted that he repeatedly contacted Sullivan with demands for payment, threatened to publicise the debt to neighbours and park a sign-written debt collection van outside her home and workplace. On 24 August 2012, after receiving further threats, she returned home from work and found the van parked outside. She was distressed and frightened; she later told the court she felt watched, lost weight and was prescribed a mild sleeping tablet.
Hogan had already granted an interlocutory injunction and later a permanent injunction restraining McCartan from watching or besetting Sullivan’s home. The contractors gave undertakings to the court and ended McCartan’s retainer. McCartan did not appear or have representation at the hearings, the judgment said.
In the earlier judgment, Hogan found McCartan’s conduct amounted to a prima facie breach of sections 10 and 11 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997, and breached Sullivan’s constitutional rights to protection of the person and the inviolability of the dwelling. The damages judgment did not record a criminal conviction. Hogan held that damages could be awarded for the constitutional breaches because existing tort law did not adequately protect the interests at stake.
Hogan described McCartan’s conduct as outrageous and malicious, and noted that it continued for about three weeks. He awarded exemplary damages to mark the court’s disapproval of the conduct.