The High Court has refused Peter Griffiths more time to appeal a €5,000 damages award made in defamation proceedings, ruling that he had not shown a timely intention to appeal or a qualifying mistake behind the delay.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the judgment on 21 February 2017. The application concerned an order made by the Circuit Court on 25 April 2016, when it awarded Griffiths €5,000 against Zabrina Collins. The court dealt with costs separately on 14 July, ordering Collins to pay Griffiths’s costs, to be taxed if not agreed.
A notice of appeal issued on 25 July. It referred to the damages award as having been made on 14 July, although that date related to the costs order. Barrett J treated the notice as seeking to appeal the April damages order, the only order that set the amount of damages. The applicable rule required a notice of appeal to be served within 10 days of the judgment or order being pronounced in open court.
Griffiths applied on 30 November for an extension of time. His solicitor said Griffiths had formed a view that he should appeal within 10 days, but the judge found the statement vague: it did not identify which decision it referred to or explain its basis. Griffiths had not sworn an affidavit himself.
The solicitor also accepted that, in hindsight, he should have checked whether an earlier order existed. He said it had not occurred to him that there was an earlier order while the case remained unfinished, and that the April order had not been sent to him. The judge rejected this as an established mistake warranting an extension. The solicitor and counsel had been present when the damages order was pronounced, and the 10-day period ran from that oral pronouncement, whether or not a written order was later sent.
The judge accepted that an arguable appeal ground existed: it was arguable that the Circuit Court had set damages too low. But he found that Griffiths had not established either a bona fide intention to appeal within the permitted time or a mistake of the kind required by the case law. Taking account of the need for finality in litigation, the court declined to exercise its discretion to extend time.
The ruling decided only the request for more time to appeal the damages order. It did not determine whether an appeal on damages would succeed.