The Supreme Court has refused to allow former Garda Chief Superintendent Paul Smyth to revive proceedings against Crofter Properties Limited or substantially expand his long-running claim against Hugh Tunney and Caroline Devine.
Smyth began proceedings in March 1996 alleging defamation, injurious falsehood and related wrongdoing arising from telephone calls allegedly made between 1992 and 1995. The pleaded case said a female caller told British police that Smyth was involved with a company allegedly used to launder IRA money and had misused his Garda authority to obstruct inquiries.
Smyth claimed those allegations were passed to An Garda Síochána and led to an investigation which damaged him.
In August 1998 he voluntarily discontinued the action against Crofter Properties. He later explained that decision as a deliberate attempt to avoid the additional burden and costs risk of proving that Caroline Devine had acted for the company.
His position changed after a separate Supreme Court judgment in July 2002 held, in Crofter Properties Limited v Genport Limited, that Devine had made relevant calls on behalf of Crofter as well as herself. Smyth then sought to withdraw his earlier discontinuance and amend his pleadings. The High Court granted permission in January 2004.
The Supreme Court has now reversed that order. Mr Justice Finnegan held that the procedural rules governing discontinuance amounted to a comprehensive code and did not generally permit a plaintiff to retract a deliberate notice of discontinuance. While courts retain an inherent power to prevent abuse of process, this was not a case of mistake, inadvertence or other exceptional circumstances.
The court also refused proposed amendments adding alleged publications to the Revenue Commissioners and Phoenix magazine and new claims for wrongful interference with economic interests, negligence and breach of duty. Finnegan J said those amendments required new facts and could deprive the defendants of limitation defences.
The appeal was therefore allowed and Smyth was refused both permission to restore Crofter Properties to the case and permission to make the proposed amendments.