Arigna Mining Company Ltd, and Kingston (Earl of) v Layden

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 21 December 1930
• Date: 21 December 1930
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

S. C., I.F.S.]

Earl of Kingston and the Arigna Mining Co., Ltd.

and

Layden

Proceedings stayed - Disputes as to encroachments on adjoining mines -Matters in dispute referred to surveyor to report -Submission made a rule of Court - Whether surveyor's report and findings binding upon parties - Question of law - Case stated - Trespass, negligent but not wilful - Applicability of Statute of Limitations - Common Law Procedure Amendment Act (Ir.), 1853 (16 17 Vict., c. 113), s. 20 - Common Law Procedure Amendment Act (Ir.), 1856 (19 20 Vict., c. 102), s. 8.

The plaintiffs, who were the proprietors of a coal mine, brought an action in 1924 against the son of the deceased lessee of an adjoining coal mine for an injunction restraining him from trespassing upon the plaintiffs' mine and for damages for taking coal therefrom. A consent was subsequently entered into, by which all further proceedings in the action were stayed, and a surveyor, who was a mining expert, was to be appointed, who was to make a report. This report was to be binding upon all parties. The consent also provided that the submission might be made a rule of Court. The surveyor made his report, by which he found that a sum of over £2,000 was payable by the defendant to the plaintiffs for damages for trespass, that the sum of over £3,000 was payable by the plaintiffs to the defendant for damages for trespass, that the trespass committed by the plaintiffs was due to negligence, and was committed during the years 1913-1916, save as to one slight trespass which was committed in the year 1921, and that these findings were subject to any decision of the Court with regard to the legal liability of the plaintiffs to pay damages for the trespass committed by them. Subsquently the plaintiffs brought a summary summons against the defendant in the former action and one of his brothers suing them as executors and trustees of their father's will and in their personal capacity. The plaintiffs claimed the sum which was found by the surveyor's report to be payable to them. The defendants, in their defence, denied that the report was final or conclusive, and pleaded that the terms of the consent had not been carried out by reason of the failure of the surveyor to make an award giving effect to his report. They counterclaimed the sum found by the surveyor to be payable to them by the plaintiffs, who, in their reply, relied on the Statute of Limitations (16 & 17 Vict., c. 113) as an answer to the counterclaim...