Dunnes loses cases over Galway and Tallaght shopping centres

Dunnes Stores has lost two, and won one, of three High Court actions involving it.

A company managing the Square Shopping Centre in Tallaght, Dublin, won its case over an objection by Dunnes to a 200,000sq ft €30million extension on an existing 289-space surface northern car park.

In the second case, a firm running the Edward Square Shopping Centre in Galway won orders restraining Dunnes from disabling automatic doors into the centre from William Street in what had been the culmination of a rent dispute.

Dunnes won the third case, taken by it against Dublin City Council and the owners of Harry’s Bar on South King Street, Dublin, over the erection of front awnings outside the bar. Dunnes claimed the awnings blocked the display window of its St Stephen’s Green store, and the court found the awnings were unauthorised.

Mr Justice Max Barrett heard all three separate actions and delivered judgment on them on Thursday.

Car park

In the Tallaght case, the Square Management Ltd, National Asset Property Management Ltd (which owns the car park area) and the extension developers Indego, sought declarations in relation to Dunnes claim of legal rights to the car park area.

Dunnes said, apart from inconvenience to its shoppers, it had acquired certain rights to the car park by virtue of “easement by prescription” which allows the supermarket use it without having to own the property. That claim was denied.

Mr Justice Barrett found the lease for the centre entitled the landlord to carry out development on the northern car park and Dunnes did not have an irrevocable right for its customers to park there or an easement of right of way over the car-park area.

Dunnes did not have a right to use the land, for car parking or otherwise, beyond what was stated in the lease, he held.

Galway

In the Galway case, the Edward Square Shopping Centre owners, Camiveo Ltd, sought injunctions ordering Dunnes to reopen the William Street doors. That entrance gives shoppers an attractive means of accessing the Eyre Square Centre and vice versa, Mr Justice Barrett noted. He granted Camiveo its orders and also said he would be awarding damages, including aggravated and exemplary damages, against Dunnes for breach of contract and unlawful interference with Camiveo’s economic interests. The sum will be decided later.

After Camiveo bought the Edward Square centre in 2013, a dispute over the rent and service payments paid by Dunnes developed and lead to the Supreme Court ordering Dunnes to pay Camiveo €1.13 million in rent and interest due.

With some €384,00 still to be paid after the court decision, Camiveo sought to take further legal steps against Dunnes in June 2015. That same day, Dunnes ordered the front doors to its Edward Square unit to be closed.

Mr Justice Barrett said, while Dunnes gave no reason for this, it could only be seen as a tactical response by Dunnes to the new legal steps and a continuation of its “ongoing campaign to cause economic difficulties” for Camiveo. It was also an attempt to deter Camiveo from exercising its lawful rights, he said.

Dunnes acted in a “high-handed and cavalier” and to some extent “economically strange” manner in that it appeared to have adversely affected its own level of trading, he said. Its “retaliation and infliction of injury on Camiveo” was done to dissuade Camiveo from insisting on its proper legal entitlement. That involved “so many transgressions of the lease arrangements” he did not believe Dunnes did not know itself , from early on, it was acting entirely in breach of contract.

In relation to the Harry’s Bar case, the judge ruled Dunnes was entitled to an order quashing the council’s decision that overhead awnings could be used in connection with the bar’s street-furniture licence.