The High Court has dismissed an appeal by Lawrence Evans against a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal decision that there was no prima facie case for an inquiry into the conduct of three solicitors who acted for him in a personal injury claim.
In a judgment delivered on 23 November 2009, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, President of the High Court, said the tribunal had ample evidence to decide the complaint as it did. He concluded that nothing in Evans’s appeal affidavit showed that the tribunal had erred in its reasoned decision.
The complaint concerned legal proceedings arising from an accident in November 2001. Evans claimed he slipped on grease or oil on a stairwell while working aboard a vessel in Dublin Port, fell eight steps and suffered, among other injuries, significant head injury. The judgment describes those matters as the plaintiff’s assertions.
The underlying High Court proceedings named Tuskar Rock Divers Limited, Holyhead Towing Co. Ltd and Alfred McAlpine Services and Pipelines Limited as defendants. The judgment said the case involved questions about vessel ownership, delays arranging an engineering inspection while the vessel moved between locations, additional parties joining once ownership was clarified, and substantial discovery issues concerning the vessel and Evans’s medical history.
The tribunal had rejected Evans’s complaint in a ruling dated 31 August 2009. He appealed under the Solicitors Acts. At a High Court hearing on 9 November, Evans chose to have the appeal decided on the documents already filed rather than arrange a further hearing for more detailed submissions. The judge said he had considered more than 1,000 pages of material.
The judgment records the court’s assessment that the solicitors had not caused unreasonable delay. It says Evans made early complaints to the Law Society, which the judge considered correctly rejected, and later sent numerous faxes criticising alleged delays. Allegations that he had been rude to staff were denied by Evans.
The judge also noted that Evans’s appeal affidavit raised allegations about the Law Society and an independent adjudicator, rather than engaging with the tribunal’s reasoning. He said complaints about the Society’s failure to consider surreptitiously recorded conversations did not advance the subject matter of the appeal. The court dismissed the appeal, leaving the tribunal’s no-prima-facie-case decision in place; it did not order an inquiry into the solicitors’ conduct.