The High Court has struck out the claims brought against Simon Wagner in a dispute over proceeds from the sale of land in Derry, ruling that the plaintiffs’ pleadings disclosed no reasonable cause of action against him.
In a judgment delivered on 6 December 2022, Ms Justice Butler also ordered, under the court’s inherent jurisdiction, that all relief sought against Mr Wagner be deleted from the plenary summons and statement of claim. The ruling dealt only with the claims against him; the plaintiffs’ claims against the other defendants concerning sale proceeds can continue in this jurisdiction.
The plaintiffs, Shannen McCann and Tara McCann, say they provided £1.2 million towards the purchase of 256 acres at Buncrana Road and that their father, Colin McManus, held part of his interest in the venture in trust for them. Mr McManus denies the alleged trust. The judgment records that Mr Wagner said he had not known of the plaintiffs’ involvement and made no claim to the money due to Mr McManus under a settlement.
The plaintiffs alleged that Mr Wagner knew or should have known of the trust and that, after learning of their claimed interest in February 2020, he induced Mr McManus to breach it through an April 2020 settlement. Under that agreement, Mr McManus was to receive £8.8 million in exchange for relinquishing his remaining project interests and related rights. The plaintiffs’ case was that they were entitled to a share of Mr McManus’s interest.
Justice Butler found the pleaded case that Mr Wagner had notice of the trust contradicted by the plaintiffs’ own account and their solicitor’s correspondence, which indicated that the plaintiffs’ involvement had been deliberately kept from him. She said Irish law did not recognise a tort of inducing breach of trust. She also found that the pleadings did not identify a recognised legal basis for requiring Mr Wagner to continue doing business with Mr McManus to protect the plaintiffs’ claimed interests.
The judge concluded that allowing the plaintiffs to pursue a trust claim against Mr Wagner, after deliberately concealing the trust from him, would amount to an abuse of process. She said there would be no real injustice in striking out the claims: proceedings concerning ownership of the Derry lands were underway in Northern Ireland, and the plaintiffs could continue their claim in this jurisdiction against Mr McManus and Kathleen McManus for proceeds due to Mr McManus. Mr Wagner claimed no right to those proceeds.