The President of the High Court has struck out an action by members of a Co Tipperary family in which they claimed a solicitor improperly influenced a Circuit Court judge's decision in a case involving a disputed will.
Mr Michael Ryan and his sister, Nora Ryan, Bawnmore, Cashel, and their cousin, Mr John Dalton, Cloughaleigh, Golden, Cashel, had brought proceedings against Mr Kieran T. Flynn, solicitor, who practises at St Michael's Street, Tipperary.
Arising out of Mr Justice Finnegan's decision and previous findings by the courts, the Ryans and Mr Dalton face legal costs totalling an estimated €300,000.
Mr Justice Finnegan was told on Tuesday that the action arose out of a Circuit Court hearing in Tipperary by Judge Joseph Matthews in 1998 involving a dispute over a will. The Ryans were unsuccessful in the challenge to the will of their late brother, Patrick.
The Ryans and Mr Dalton had claimed that Mr Flynn (who represented the person who benefited under the late Patrick Ryan's will) was overheard, during a break in the Circuit Court hearing, discussing in an alleged dismissive way with Judge Matthews a statement made by a witness who gave evidence on behalf of the Ryans. They alleged that Mr Flynn improperly influenced the judicial decision.
When the hearing resumed yesterday, Mr Martin Giblin SC, for the Ryans and Mr Dalton, said that, for reasons which had arisen, he and his junior counsel wished to come off record. He asked that the hearing be adjourned to allow the Ryans and Mr Dalton to instruct other barristers.
Mr Justice Finnegan said the case raised very serious issues and for that reason should be heard in full.
Mr David Kennedy SC, for Mr Flynn, objected to the applications, saying this was a strategy by the Ryans and Mr Dalton. Having had their day in court and made outrageous allegations which were strenuously denied by his client, they were preventing Mr Flynn giving his side of the story, counsel said. There was more to this case than met the eye. To stop the hearing at this stage would render an even greater injustice to Mr Flynn.
Mr Kennedy said this was the sixth set of solicitors in the proceedings and at least the third set of counsel. Every time a decision was made or something else was done, there was an agile side-step, a new legal team, another stratagem or device to air.
Mr Kennedy said that because it appeared at this stage of the present hearing that the case was perhaps not going to their advantage, the Ryans and Mr Dalton had decided to "collapse the scrum, pull down their tent and go".