The High Court has ruled that historic charter rights to hold markets and fairs in Listowel did not attach to the Market Place lands owned by Listowel Livestock Mart Limited, and could not impair the company’s title to those lands.
In a judgment delivered on 26 October 2007, Mr Justice Clarke said the 1612 and 1688 charters granted general rights to hold markets and fairs in Listowel but did not identify a particular site. In his primary conclusion, he found that obligations under such grants did not attach to a specific parcel of land where the grant was not defined by metes and bounds.
The dispute arose after the mart moved its regular sales to a new site outside the town and entered into a contract to sell the Market Place in 2004. Three companies associated with William Bird opposed the sale, arguing that the charter rights continued to affect the land. Their case, as presented at the hearing, accepted that the mart could relocate the market and fairs to a suitable location within the charters’ limits.
The mart sought declarations that the Bird companies had no right to use the land for rides, stalls or amusements and that the charter rights did not bind the land in perpetuity. The Bird companies counterclaimed for a declaration that they could enter the land to provide rides, stalls and amusements on the charter dates, subject to paying a toll.
The judge said the charters called for markets on Tuesdays and Saturdays and three two-day fairs each year, beginning on 13 May, 26 July and 28 October. He considered whether those rights had become associated with the Market Place through use. Historical records indicated that fairs and markets had taken place in Listowel’s square and streets; some activity later occurred at the Market Place. But he was not satisfied that the charter markets or fairs had been allocated to that site before the mart acquired it in 1959.
He also found that activities during race week, when the Bird businesses occupied the site under leases, were not charter markets or fairs. The mart’s cattle sales on Wednesdays and Thursdays could qualify as markets in principle, he said, but the charter market days were Tuesday and Saturday.
As a further basis for his conclusion, the judge found that none of the fair rights or Tuesday and Saturday market rights had been exercised for more than ten years. He said they would therefore have been extinguished under the Casual Trading Act 1995. This was an alternative conclusion, in case his primary ruling on whether the rights could attach to land was wrong.
The judgment also addressed relocation. The mart’s new site was outside the area covered by the 1612 charter and, in the judge’s view, outside the relevant limits of the 1688 charter. Any valid relocation would need to be within the charter boundaries and convenient for buyers and sellers. The court said that convenience did not require accommodation for the Bird businesses’ amusements, which were not legal incidents of a market or fair.
The judgment’s stated primary conclusion was that the charter obligations did not affect title to the Market Place lands. It did not find that the mart had validly relocated the markets to its new site.