The High Court has dismissed Patrick C. Kearney’s appeal against a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal decision that there was no prima facie case of misconduct by solicitors Philip B. White and Ray Lannon.
Kearney complained about the solicitors’ work connected with a land transfer and their later dealings for other clients concerning the same parcel, identified as Folio DL47151F. The Tribunal rejected the complaint on 5 December 2013, finding that the solicitors had adequately rebutted the allegations and that there was no supporting evidence. Kearney appealed by motion returned on 3 February 2014.
The judgment records that the solicitors’ firm acted in a transfer of land from Kearney’s uncle to Kearney in 2000, completed in January 2001. Lannon later received instructions from John Kelly in a land dispute involving Kearney. The judgment also refers to correspondence with Kearney in July 2010 on behalf of neighbours, and to a letter Lannon sent on 11 April 2012 about the dispute.
Kearney alleged that the solicitors had a conflict because the firm had previously acted for him and was now acting for another party in relation to the same land. In affidavits, he also asserted that the firm had represented both him and his uncle and possessed information that could prejudice him in the right-of-way dispute. He raised allegations of slander and other conduct. Those were his claims; the judgment does not treat them as established findings.
Lannon denied any conflict and said he held no information that would prejudice Kearney. White said the earlier transfer had no connection to the present dispute and that Kearney was no longer a client of the firm. The judgment records their position that the earlier and later matters were unrelated.
Kearns P. considered the professional conduct rules on conflicts between clients and found no evidence substantiating the alleged conflict. The court said the earlier representation concerned a completely different matter more than twelve years before, and the current work was not related to the right-of-way action in which Kearney was a defendant. It agreed with the Tribunal that there was no misconduct and dismissed the appeal. The ruling addresses the appeal from the Tribunal’s no-prima-facie-case decision; it does not determine the underlying right-of-way dispute.