Solicitors and radio owner lose appeal over €120,000 damages to couple

A FIRM of solicitors and a radio station owner have lost their Supreme Court appeal against an order requiring them to pay €120,000 damages to a couple for “very substantial” distress suffered, including being served with bankruptcy proceedings, arising from how a legal case was conducted.

The three-judge Supreme Court yesterday unanimously upheld findings by the High Court that Michael Richardson and Wendi Ferris Richardson, The Orchard, Castleconnell, Limerick, were entitled to some €60,000 damages each against Gerard Madden and the Limerick legal firm of Dermot G. O’Donovan and Partners.

The court also ruled the couple were entitled to be indemnified by both defendants against a €88,000 legal costs bill served on them by the Independent Radio and Television Commission arising from litigation at the centre of the proceedings.

Given the “serious effect” on the lives of the couple, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan said the order requiring the defendants to pay them €120,000 damages was not excessive.

The couple had brought proceedings alleging they were unaware they had been participants in an unsuccessful legal action which led to their getting the bill for €88,000 legal fees from the IRTC which they were unable to pay.

They were later threatened with bankruptcy and had their names published in Stubbs Gazette, the Supreme Court noted.

They claimed Mr Madden had personally agreed to indemnify them for costs incurred in judicial review proceedings heard in 1997 and also that they had told the solicitors’ they did not wish to proceed with the 1997 proceedings.

Mr Madden was prior to 1996 the principal shareholder in Radio Limerick One which held a licence from the IRTC. After that licence was terminated, he and the Richardsons were among five unsuccessful separate applications for a new licence.

Four of those later met Michael Hogan, a solicitor with the O’Donovan firm, about the prospect of bringing a challenge to the IRTC decision.

In the High Court in 2005, Mr Justice John Quirke found the 1997 proceedings got under way on the initiative of Mr Madden and were largely for his benefit.

He found Mr Richardson had made it clear to Mr Madden and others that he did not have resources to participate in the litigation and that Mr Madden agreed to indemnify the Richardsons.

Both Mr Madden and the O’Donovan firm appealed but Mr Justice Finnegan dismissed both appeals yesterday.