The High Court said James Kelly was not the personal representative of the late Mary Markey and was not entitled to seek court relief in that capacity.
In a judgment delivered on 19 November 2018, Mr Justice Max Barrett considered a motion by Kelly in proceedings concerning the estate of Philip Markey, a businessman who had lived at Curragh Lawn Nursing Home in Kinneagh, County Kildare, and formerly at the Stray Inn in Mile Mill, Kilcullen.
The judgment records that, on 11 June 2018, Ms Justice Baker ordered that Kelly could apply for and extract a grant of letters of administration ad litem. The grant was limited to substantiating proceedings intended by Kelly on behalf of the estate or continuing existing proceedings between John O’Connor, as plaintiff, and Gerard Markey and Mary Markey, as defendants.
Mr Justice Barrett noted that there had been a suggestion during the hearing that the June order was not the order sought from Ms Justice Baker. He said it was the order she had been prepared to make.
Despite the limited authority in that order, Kelly later applied ex parte to have the proceedings’ title amended. On 6 July 2018, the second defendant’s name, Mary Markey, was replaced by “James Kelly, as the personal representative of the late Mary Markey”. Mr Justice Barrett said Kelly was not Mary Markey’s personal representative and ought not to have been named that way.
The judgment states that Kelly’s current motion sought reliefs in his purported capacity as Mary Markey’s personal representative. The court’s stated conclusion was that, because he did not hold that role, he was not entitled to the reliefs sought in that capacity. The supplied judgment extract does not specify any further order or the disposition of the underlying estate proceedings.