The Supreme Court dismissed Daniel and Elva Gallagher’s appeal against a High Court order that had dismissed their claim against Sean and Catherine McGlynn and required them to pay the respondents’ costs, to be taxed and ascertained.
In a judgment delivered on 10 May 2016, Chief Justice Susan Denham said the proceedings were vexatious because they concerned issues already determined in earlier litigation. The Court also said the action had no prospect of success and appeared to have been brought to harass the respondents.
The appellants had said they wanted the respondents investigated by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation or the Criminal Assets Bureau, alleging fraud and a cover-up. Both sides appeared without lawyers at the appeal hearing on 17 December 2015. The judgment records that the Supreme Court considered the filed papers and oral submissions.
The dispute concerned a farm at Knocknabollan in Donegal, which Madge Friel left in her 1994 will to her cousin Anton Gallagher. Anton died before Friel, so the gift lapsed and the farm became part of the residue of her estate, to be divided among her next of kin under succession law, the judgment said. The McGlynns, whom Friel had appointed executors, arranged for the property to be sold. Daniel Gallagher, Anton’s son, was occupying the land with cattle and refused to leave.
Earlier proceedings resulted in orders for vacant possession and against interference with the sale. The Circuit Court ruled in 2006 that Daniel Gallagher had no claim to the property; the High Court affirmed that decision in 2007. The Supreme Court later ruled it had no jurisdiction to hear his attempted appeal from that High Court decision.
The current appeal concerned a separate High Court special-summons action, brought in 2008 and dismissed in 2010. The Supreme Court said the summons disclosed no right of action and restated matters already raised in the earlier litigation. It dismissed the appeal. The judgment did not order an investigation of the respondents.