The High Court awarded Janice O’Brien €92,580 in damages after finding that she had been left without good title to an apartment she acquired in 2007. Mr Justice Conor Dignam awarded €36,000 for mental distress and €56,580 for the costs of an application that helped rectify the title. He rejected her claims for a reduction in the apartment’s value and for aggravated damages.
The defendants, Catherine O’Donnell and solicitors John Plunkett and Brian Kirwan practising as Plunkett Kirwan Solicitors, admitted liability shortly before the hearing. The hearing therefore addressed the damages and other relief Ms O’Brien could recover, rather than whether the defendants were liable.
The dispute arose from linked transactions involving Ms O’Brien’s Clontarf Road home and apartment No. 3, Glenbrian Hall. She sold her home and was to acquire the apartment, but the title deeds were not provided when the transactions closed in October 2007. A later attempt to supply deeds, including a 2009 lease and assignment, did not establish good and marketable title. The Supreme Court in 2022 allowed Ms O’Brien’s appeal on the title issue in earlier proceedings. The High Court hearing proceeded on the basis that subsequent steps had rectified the title; the judgment noted that this had not been confirmed at earlier mention dates.
Mr Justice Dignam accepted that damp and mould appeared soon after Ms O’Brien moved into the apartment and that she wanted to sell and move. He found that she could not obtain a mortgage without title and that the resulting physical discomfort and inability to move contributed to her distress. He was not satisfied that her significant health problems were caused by the defendants’ breaches, as no medical evidence established that link.
In setting the distress award, the judge considered the period from April 2008, when Ms O’Brien learned she lacked title, to July 2023. He assessed €90,000 before reducing it by 60% to account for other significant contributors, including her facial injury and stress arising from her re-entry to her former home and the ensuing litigation.
The court rejected her property-value claim because there was no reliable valuation for the time she first tried to sell in 2008. It also found insufficient evidence to award aggravated damages, including over allegations that the 2009 title documents were created dishonestly or that a solicitor misled an earlier judge.
The court allowed €56,580 for costs of the Trustee Act application, finding those costs were reasonably incurred to protect Ms O’Brien’s interests while the title was being rectified. The judge gave a provisional view that she was entitled to her costs of the present case and listed the matter for mention on 9 October 2025. Parties wishing to make submissions on costs were to notify the Registrar within six weeks of judgment.