The High Court has dismissed an appeal by Catherine Payne and George Flaherty Junior against a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal decision that there was no prima facie case of misconduct against solicitor Una O’Donnell.
In a judgment delivered on 28 July 2014, President of the High Court Kearns said the issue was whether the tribunal had erred in reaching that conclusion. The court was not being asked to analyse or resolve the family dispute behind the complaint.
The appellants, who are brother and sister, complained to the tribunal in April 2013 about O’Donnell’s conduct while acting for their father, George Flaherty Senior, in matters arising after their mother Veronica Flaherty’s death in 2008. The complaint included allegations of collusion with their sister Mary McLaughlin, inflammatory correspondence, direct service of a civil bill despite the appellants having legal representation, failure to address concerns about alleged undue influence, and arranging a property valuation without notifying executors. These were allegations made by the appellants, not findings by the High Court.
The family home in Killybegs had been left to Catherine Payne under their mother’s will, with their father given a rent-free right of residence for as long as he wished. Their father later sought to exercise an election under succession law and, in 2009, sought to appropriate the home and its contents. The dispute led to Circuit Court proceedings, which were settled by agreement in May 2011. The judgment records that Payne later said in an affidavit that O’Donnell and McLaughlin had contacted another sister before the settlement without her knowledge.
O’Donnell denied wrongdoing in her tribunal affidavit. She said she had acted on her client’s instructions and rejected the suggestion that he was subject to undue influence. The tribunal considered affidavits from both sides and, on 1 May 2014, found no prima facie case of misconduct. It gave reasons addressing each of the nine allegations.
Kearns said the correspondence may have caused the appellants upset or frustration, but that did not necessarily amount to misconduct or breach of the relevant regulatory codes. Having reviewed the material, the court found the tribunal’s reasons for dismissing the allegations reasonable and said the appellants had adduced no further evidence warranting a different conclusion.
The appeal was dismissed. The court did not make a finding that the underlying family allegations were true; it decided only that the tribunal had not erred in finding no prima facie case of misconduct.