The High Court has refused AGM Londis plc’s application for summary judgment against Gorman’s Supermarket Limited and Patrick Kerrigan, allowing Kerrigan to defend all sums claimed at a plenary hearing.
In a judgment delivered on 28 February 2014, Mr Justice Barrett said the issues could not be resolved through the summary procedure and required oral evidence. The ruling addressed whether Londis could recover the debts summarily; it did not decide whether Kerrigan was ultimately liable.
Londis’s claims arose from a Londis-branded shop in Athboy, first operated through Gorman’s Supermarket and later by Kerrigan personally. Londis had already obtained judgment against the company. It also sought payment from Kerrigan under a personal guarantee allegedly given on 28 May 2002, and under a franchise agreement and product purchase agreement signed on 21 July 2010.
Kerrigan denied signing the guarantee. The judge said its signature appeared different from signatures on other agreements in evidence, but expressly made no finding about who had signed it. Whether Kerrigan signed and was liable under the guarantee was a factual issue for the plenary hearing.
Kerrigan accepted that the 2010 agreements appeared to bear his signatures, but said he thought he was signing documents to extend the company’s credit limit. He said the Londis representative had not explained their nature and that he later understood he was trading personally. The judge concluded from Kerrigan’s affidavit that he had signed the agreements, while noting that what he understood when signing remained uncertain.
The court also considered disputes about the operation of the trading accounts. Londis acknowledged that calculating the sums due was complicated because the existing accounts had not been closed and new accounts opened when Kerrigan took over the franchise personally. The judge said Londis’s contention that Kerrigan’s evidence showed he knew he was trading personally was arguable, but that the wider issues required determination at trial.
Other disputed items included goods supplied directly and paid for initially by Londis, whether invoices had been reconciled against deliveries, credit for stock left on the premises when a successor took over, and Kerrigan’s entitlements under a lease arrangement. Londis and Kerrigan disputed aspects of those matters.
Applying the test for leave to defend a summary claim, the judge found it was not clear that Kerrigan had no defence to the amounts claimed. He refused Londis’s application for summary judgment and granted Kerrigan leave to defend all the sums at a plenary hearing. The judgment expressed tentative views only and left the underlying claims unresolved.