The High Court has ruled that a plaintiff’s negligence and breach of contract claim against a firm of solicitors was statute barred. Ms Justice O’Regan held that the claim accrued in 2005, when the transactions were completed, and that proceedings issued in 2013 came outside the six-year limitation period.
The dispute concerned two agreements made in November 2000 involving lands in County Wicklow. One gave Celtic Waste Limited an option to buy the lands for €3.5 million, subject to conditions and royalty payments to the plaintiff. The second gave the plaintiff an option to buy the lands back. The plaintiff’s pleaded case was that he would not have agreed to the sale option without the buy-back option.
Celtic Waste, later known as Green Star Holdings Limited, gave notice in 2004 that the conditions for exercising its option had been met, and in January 2005 said it would exercise the option. The resulting contract and transfer were in favour of Green Star Properties Limited. The court noted that a different company was initially registered as owner in September 2005 because of a Property Registration Authority error; the registration was corrected in 2012. Green Star Holdings was never registered as full owner.
The plaintiff received royalty payments through the end of 2011. In February 2013, he was told that no further payments would be made. He argued that he suffered no loss until the royalties stopped, so his claim was in time. The defendants argued that loss arose earlier, when the transaction left the plaintiff unable to enforce the royalty payments or exercise the buy-back option.
The issue before the court was limited to whether the claim was statute barred. Applying the six-year period for actions founded on tort, the judge found that actual loss arose on completion of the transaction in 2005: the plaintiff had lost rights to enforce the royalties and exercise the buy-back option. The later cessation of payments did not postpone accrual. The judge also found that the relevant identities in the contract, transfer and land registration could have been discovered and proved by the end of 2005; the plaintiff’s actual knowledge was immaterial.
The court concluded that the defendants had established that the proceedings, issued on 12 September 2013, were outside the statutory time limit. It therefore held the claim against the firm statute barred. The judgment addressed that limitation issue; it did not determine the underlying negligence and contract allegations on their merits.