The High Court has directed the State defendants in a civil damages case to provide the broad-outline facts supporting their reliance on a statutory Garda search power. It refused two other requests by the plaintiff for particulars of the defence.
Padraic Walsh claims damages for assault, battery, breach of constitutional rights and false imprisonment over an alleged incident at Galway Retail Park on 12 February 2015. He alleges that five people, whom he says were Garda members, restrained him and that four took part in an assault. His pleadings say none wore uniform or appeared to be Gardaí, and that force was used although he offered no resistance. These are allegations, not findings in this judgment.
The defendants deny liability. Their defence says Walsh was searched lawfully under section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, as amended, and that Garda actions were proportionate, necessary and reasonable. It also pleads contributory negligence, alleging that Walsh failed to heed lawful requests, resisted or obstructed Gardaí, failed to co-operate and acted loudly and argumentatively.
Walsh sought particulars of the factual basis for the asserted reasonable suspicion that he possessed a controlled drug, details of anything he allegedly said or did before being restrained, and the precise facts behind each contributory-negligence allegation. The defendants argued that the requests sought evidence for trial rather than information required to clarify the pleaded case.
Mr Justice MacGrath found that the defence had pleaded no factual basis, even in broad outline, for the statutory search defence. The plaintiff was therefore left unclear whether the claimed source of reasonable suspicion was, for example, a third-party informant or Walsh’s own activities. The judge said that Walsh’s general allegation that the defendants acted without lawful justification did not remove their obligation to plead the justification on which they intended to rely.
The court ordered the defendants to reply to the request for the broad-outline facts underlying the section 23 defence. It dismissed the requests for particulars about Walsh’s alleged words or actions before he was restrained and about the contributory-negligence pleas, finding the former sought evidence and the latter sufficiently detailed in broad outline. The judgment decided this particulars application; it did not determine the underlying damages claim or whether the search or alleged conduct was lawful.