The High Court dismissed Sean McAndrew’s claims against Peter and Shireen West and their solicitors, finding that the trespass claim was unsustainable and the defamation claim was bound to fail.
In a judgment delivered on 23 April 2015, Mr Justice Noonan considered the defendants’ application to strike out or dismiss the proceedings. He concluded that the claims could not succeed on the evidence before the court and dismissed the plaintiff’s claim.
The dispute began with a 2003 agreement under which McAndrew, a farmer and building contractor, agreed to sell the Wests a plot at Castle Hill, Ballina, County Mayo, and build a house there. The land was transferred to them in February 2004. A later dispute over the construction works went to arbitration and was settled by consent award in June 2006. The award provided for the Wests to take possession of the property and for McAndrew to contribute €10,000, including VAT, towards their legal costs.
McAndrew alleged that the Wests entered the property unlawfully on 12 May 2005. The judge said the evidence showed that the property had already been conveyed to the Wests, and McAndrew accepted the transfer without alleging a defect in the deed. His argument that the house remained his while he was owed money was, the judge held, “an unstatable proposition”. The trespass claim therefore could not succeed.
The defamation claim concerned two 2005 letters from the Wests’ solicitors to the solicitors then acting for McAndrew. The letters repeated the Wests’ allegations that McAndrew had threatened or intimidated people connected with the property dispute. The judge noted that the pleaded allegations were capable of being defamatory if untrue, but held that the letters were written on an occasion of qualified privilege: both firms had a professional duty or interest in communicating about the dispute.
To defeat that privilege, McAndrew had to establish malice in the legal sense. He had not pleaded malice with particulars, and the judge found no credible suggestion of an improper motive. The defamation claim was therefore bound to fail, regardless of whether the allegations in the letters were true.
The defendants had sought dismissal on several grounds, including that the claims were frivolous or vexatious. The judge said the case was not one where the pleadings, on their face, disclosed no cause of action; his decision rested on the evidence and the conclusion that the claims were bound to fail. He dismissed the plaintiff’s claim. The judgment does not specify a separate costs order.