A round-up of legal news stories in brief
Claim against beauty salon settled
A Dublin beauty salon yesterday settled a personal injury claim for an undisclosed amount of compensation.
The maximum €38,000 damages claim had been made by Carmel Brierty, Ratoath Estate, Dublin.
She had alleged she suffered from swollen eyes and a rash following a waxing and beauty treatment at Celia Larkin’s Beauty at the Blue Door, Navan Road, Dublin.
The company had entered a full defence to the claim, made in August 2003.
Barrister Bernard Rogan, for Ms Brierty, told Judge Joseph Mathews in the Circuit Civil Court that the claim had been settled.
Teenager on witness intimidation charge
A Dublin youth (17) was remanded in custody yesterday after he was charged with witness intimidation.
The boy was arrested and brought before the Dublin Children’s Court charged with two counts of threatening, intimidating and putting a man, who was a witness, in fear, with intent of causing justice to be obstructed, in Crumlin, Dublin, on March 5th and 6th last.
Defence solicitor Gareth Noble said the teenager denies the allegations. Judge Clare Leonard remanded the teenager in custody to St Patrick’s Institution, to appear again on Friday next for a bail hearing.
Solicitor must work under another lawyer
A Dublin-based solicitor was ordered by the High Court yesterday to stop operating as a sole practitioner and to work only under the supervision of another lawyer after being found guilty of failing to comply with undertakings given in six separate conveyancing matters.
President of the High Court Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns made the order against Owen McCarthy, Grattan Crescent, Inchicore, Dublin. A second solicitor, Peter McGarry, Capel Street, had a freezing order on his accounts extended over alleged offences of failing to keep accounts up to date, and over mortgage undertakings.
Rogue solicitor's client fails in costs bid
A client of disgraced solicitor Thomas Byrne has failed to secure legal costs relating to his efforts to recover title documents to his home, which were used by Mr Byrne to obtain mortgages from two banks.
Dermot Naughton was a “completely innocent” victim left to pick up the tab for Mr Byrne’s reckless and fraudulent behaviour, president of the High Court Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said.
While having sympathy for Mr Naughton, who had left the deeds of his home for safekeeping with Mr Byrne, the judge said Mr Naughton could not succeed in his application for the Law Society to pay the costs incurred in seeking to recover possession of the title deeds to his home after Mr Byrne’s activities came to light in 2007. The Solicitors Act provided against the making of the order sought, the judge said.
Student pleads guilty to false imprisonment
A college student who broke into a house and took a two-year-old child from his bed has been bound over to keep the peace for three years, writes Áine de Paor.
Pádraig Greed, Killea, Templemore, Co Tipperary, pleaded guilty at Limerick Circuit Court yesterday to burglary and false imprisonment after breaking into the house on Limerick’s Old Cratloe Road in March 2008. The court heard how the 23-year-old Limerick Institute of Technology student kicked down the door of the two-year-old’s room and carried him around the house. Greed escaped a jail sentence after the court heard he paid €10,000 in compensation to the family. Judge Carroll Moran applied the Probation Act.