The High Court has corrected a clerical error in a 2014 order concerning Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) DAC’s efforts to enforce a possession order against Oliver Moloney. The amendment changes the rule cited in the order; it does not overturn the refusal of the application to renew the possession order.
Pepper Finance brought the proceedings, first initiated in 2008, seeking possession of mortgaged lands under section 62 of the Registration of Title Act 1964. The High Court made a possession order on 11 October 2010. It was not enforced.
An order of possession issued in September 2011 was renewed in February 2013. In January 2014, Pepper Finance applied to renew it again under Order 42, rule 20 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. The order made by the High Court on 10 February 2014 refused the application, but its formal wording said Pepper Finance had sought leave to issue execution under rule 24.
In a judgment delivered on 2 March 2020, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said the reference to rule 24 was a clear clerical mistake. The motion and supporting affidavit showed that Pepper Finance had applied under rule 20 to renew the order. The application came before Mr Justice Simons under the slip rule, Order 28, rule 11.
Mr Moloney did not attend the hearing. His son attended and was allowed to make a short submission, on a provisional basis, that the amendment application should be heard by the judge who made the 2014 order, Mr Justice McGovern. The judgment states that the son had no right of audience on his father’s behalf. Mr Justice McGovern had since been appointed to the Court of Appeal.
Mr Justice Simons held that a clear and manifest error of this kind could be corrected by the judge sitting in the relevant court list; it did not have to go back to the original judge. He allowed the amendment. The corrected order records that Pepper Finance’s application under rule 20 to renew the possession order was refused.
The judgment addresses the correction of the 2014 order and which judge could make it. It does not grant a new possession order or decide the outcome of the later enforcement applications mentioned in the judgment.