The High Court set aside a third-party notice against Paraic O’Kennedy, a former partner of O’Sullivan and Associates, in proceedings arising from an investment in the Ritz Centre development in Carlow. Mr Justice Binchy found that the defendants had not served the notice as soon as reasonably possible, chiefly because they took five months to deliver their files to their solicitors after receiving the plaintiff’s statement of claim.
The underlying proceedings were brought by Margaret Lyons against financial and tax advisers John Delaney, Anthony Locke, Patrick Thorpe and their firm. Lyons alleges that she invested €108,500 in the Ritz Hotel Carlow Consortium in 2003 after being assured her original investment would be returned. She claims she was not told that the development involved borrowing for which consortium members could be liable. The judgment says she and other members faced a claim by the National Asset Management Agency, as successor to Irish Nationwide Building Society, for more than €4 million.
The defendants sought to join O’Kennedy and Cathal O’Sullivan, practising as O’Sullivan and Associates, as third parties. O’Kennedy asked the court to set aside the notice against him, arguing that he was not a partner when the relevant events occurred, that Lyons’s claim was statute-barred, and that the defendants had delayed. He also said he had been denied professional indemnity insurance because of late notification.
The court rejected the first two grounds at this stage. Lyons’s allegations covered conduct from 2003 to 2011, including advice about a power of attorney signed between 2006 and 2008, when O’Kennedy was a partner. The judge said it was not possible, before discovery and evidence, to conclude that the claim was statute-barred. These were not findings on the merits of Lyons’s underlying claim.
On delay, the judge found that the defendants had taken five months after the statement of claim was delivered on 1 February 2013 to send their files to their solicitors, and had offered no explanation. Although the solicitors then moved quickly, that unexplained period delayed consideration of whether to bring third-party proceedings. The judge concluded the notice had not been served as soon as reasonably possible and set it aside against O’Kennedy. He did not need to decide whether there was further delay in serving the notice after a January 2014 order. The ruling concerned the third-party notice against O’Kennedy; the judgment does not determine Lyons’s claims against the defendants.