Barrister appeals court decision to throw out damages claim against her next door neighbours

A barrister and former Dublin county registrar has appealed a Circuit Court decision to throw out a claim of up to €60,000 in damages against her next-door neighbours. The appeal has been made to the High Court.

Last month, Judge Jennifer O’Brien granted a 21-day stay on her order dismissing barrister Rita Considine’s claim on the basis the lawyer had adopted an unnecessarily aggressive, threatening and litigious approach in a development dispute with her neighbours at Home Farm Road, Dublin.

The stay had been granted after the court awarded legal costs against Ms Considine in favour of her neighbours.

The judge stated it was clear Ms Considine’s neighbours, Michael and Anne Flanagan and their daughter, Sinead Flanagan, had, from the outset, made efforts towards resolving the dispute in which Ms Considine had alleged damage to her home.

Judge O’Brien held it had been notable that Ms Considine refused to engage in mediation and the court accepted the Flanagans’ contention that Ms Considine’s conduct showed a determination to pursue the claim to trial.

“This is a most unfortunate approach to take to any dispute, least of all a dispute between neighbours,” Judge O’Brien told Ms Considine and her solicitor, who is also her husband, David Christie. 

Both Ms Considine and Mr Christie had been in the Circuit Civil Court in December to hear the reserved judgment following a nine-day trial of claim and counter claim, mainly by experts.

Ms Considine had claimed damages for the demolition of a wall between their two properties, the “butchering” of a Leylandii hedge, rising damp in her garage, and hazardous and dangerous interference with a pathway.

Judge O’Brien said the correspondence that followed the early construction events made for difficult reading. She noted that a same-day deadline set in the first letter from Ms Considine had been unreasonable.

Dismissing Ms Considine’s claim with an order for costs in favour of the Flanagans, Judge O’Brien said the defendants were not in a position to remedy matters because no consent had been forthcoming from Ms Considine to carry out these works.

Ms Considine had admitted taking no action to reinstate her property and therefore had failed to mitigate her alleged damage or loss, the judge said.

Judge O’Brien said Ms Considine claimed there had been a formal agreement between the parties with regard to proposed development works at the Flanagan property, but nothing had been committed to writing.

She quoted the opinion of Paul Anthony McDermott SC, who said: “Generally, good neighbours will assist each other without ever imagining that they are creating legally binding relations. One would expect the courts to be slow to permit the black-letter principles of contract law to cross the garden hedge.”

Judge O’Brien noted that Ms Considine had been unhappy with the work on the foundation of a dividing wall and immediately called for cessation of further work.

Ted Harding SC and Eamon Marray SC, who appeared with Hennessy Perrozzi Solicitors, for the Flanagans, had opposed the granting of the 21-day stay pending consideration by Ms Considine’s legal team of an appeal. This has now been entered on behalf of Ms Considine.