The High Court has refused an application by dairy farmer Michael Cashin to set aside a €153,215 default judgment in favour of O’Donovan Dairy Services Limited, leaving the company’s enforcement measures in place for now.
Ms Justice Baker said the defendant had not shown a real or reasonable prospect of defending the debt claim. The court’s decision concerned his application to reopen the judgment, not whether the machinery was faulty or whether he could pursue a separate claim about it.
The company obtained judgment on 7 July 2014 after Mr Cashin did not enter an appearance. He accepted that the summary summons, issued in February 2014, had been served. The judgment concerned the balance due under a contract for milking equipment installed on his farm between May and December 2011.
Mr Cashin said the machinery had significant problems. He claimed that, after he spoke to the company’s solicitor in February 2014, he understood that enforcement would be put on hold while he obtained an expert report. The solicitor’s contemporaneous note recorded a discussion of the equipment’s quality but no promise to pause proceedings. The judge also noted that later correspondence did not challenge the solicitor’s account of the conversation.
A Teagasc report supplied in October 2014 identified issues with the machinery, but the judge said it lacked information about its author’s experience and qualifications. She considered that engineering evidence would be needed to assess whether the alleged faults gave Mr Cashin a reasonable defence. No further report was before the court.
The judge said the alleged defects appeared to support a possible counterclaim, rather than a defence to the company’s claim for the contract debt. She was not persuaded that a possible counterclaim justified setting aside a judgment already obtained, particularly given the delay and the company’s steps to enforce it. These included a judgment mortgage registered against the defendant’s interest in land in County Wexford and a garnishee order concerning payments due from the Department of Agriculture. The garnishee order was made absolute in April 2016.
The motion to set aside the judgment and vacate the garnishee order was refused. Justice Baker said the defendant could bring a later application for a stay of further execution if circumstances permitted, but that issue was not properly before her on this motion. The refusal was without prejudice to such a later application.