The High Court has refused William Mulrooney’s application for discovery in defamation proceedings brought by solicitor Dolp[h] McGrath, finding that the documents sought were not relevant to the case as pleaded.
In a judgment delivered on 28 May 2019, Mr Justice Max Barrett said McGrath’s claim concerned an alleged statement made by Mulrooney at McGrath’s offices on 31 October 2014. McGrath alleged that Mulrooney claimed before various people that he had perpetrated a fraud against him. McGrath’s Defamation Civil Bill said the alleged utterances were untrue, groundless and defamatory of him as a solicitor and as an individual.
The judgment records that Mulrooney’s counsel described the defence as essentially one of truth. The court said that defence was based on the specific allegation that a lease dated 1 April 1999 had been “tampered with while in the possession of the plaintiff”. The judge said that, even on a liberal interpretation, “tamper” did not appear to cover the separate claim made at the discovery hearing: that McGrath had at some point allowed court proceedings to proceed on the basis of a lease that was unstamped or lacked a consent required under section 12 of the Land Act 1965.
Mulrooney’s notice of motion, dated 10 September 2018, sought documents about an application to the Revenue Commissioners to stamp the lease, and records concerning instructions and an application for subdivision consent from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, described in the motion as successor to the Land Commission.
The court held that the requested documents were not relevant to the proceedings as they had been pleaded. It said that documents must be relevant to be discoverable, referring to a 1996 Supreme Court judgment in Stafford v Revenue Commissioners. The application for discovery was refused.
The judgment addresses only the discovery application. It does not determine the underlying defamation claim or the truth of the allegations described in the judgment.