The High Court has refused Conor O’Brien’s application for interim orders requiring the return of 36 paintings at Dromoland Castle and stopping their reproduction. The court said the disputed issues must be determined at the full trial of the action.
In a judgment delivered on 19 September 2012, Mr Justice O’Keeffe said O’Brien sought the paintings’ return and an injunction preventing the defendants from obstructing their removal. He also sought an order restraining further copies. The application was for interlocutory relief pending a plenary hearing, and the judge stressed that the parties’ factual and legal disputes remained unresolved.
O’Brien, identified in the judgment as the 18th Baron of Inchiquin, said he owned a collection of about 45 paintings and that 36 remained at the castle. He said an agreement dated 18 August 1993 allowed the first defendant to use the paintings in return for £5,000 a year. He claimed the agreement was terminated in May 2012 because of damage to the paintings and unauthorised copying. He put the cost of reinstating damage at £256,800 and said reinstating frames on 17 paintings would cost an average of £2,400 each. Those were his claims, not findings by the court.
The defendants disputed that the agreement had been validly terminated and denied negligence or recklessness. Mark Nolan, the second defendant’s general manager, said that company had custody and control of the paintings under the agreement and argued that removing all 36 at once during the hotel’s busy season could irreparably damage its reputation. The second defendant also offered to return them in three groups of 12 during August, provided it could display reproductions in their place.
The judge found there was a fair issue for trial over whether the 1993 agreement had been transferred to the second defendant by novation. Whether the agreement included an implied ban on reproductions, and whether O’Brien could establish such a term, would also have to be decided at trial. The judgment records that no copyright claim was made in the application and that O’Brien’s counsel accepted that reproduction by people who were not parties to the proceedings was not prohibited.
Because an interim order for return would be mandatory, the court said O’Brien needed to show a strong case likely to succeed at trial. It refused that order and also refused the requested injunction against reproductions, finding that the relevant questions, including whether damages would be adequate, belonged at trial. The court said the status quo should be preserved. It did not authorise the defendants to make reproductions; if they did so before trial, they would risk a claim for damages or other relief.
The application was refused. The judge said an early trial was desirable and directed that the statement of claim be drafted without delay to set out the legal basis of the case.