Byers v Byers

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1927
• Docket Number: (1926. No. 8675.)
• Date: 01 January 1927
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

S.C.,

Byers

and

Byers

Transfer without application by parties - Trial Judge transferring action of his own motion - No application for transfer made by either party -Validity of Judge's order - No evidence for determining whether order for transfer ought to be made - Appeal - Adjournment of trial following amendment of pleadings - Costs - Rules of the Supreme Court, 1905, Or. LVIII., r. 4 - Courts of Justice Act, 1924 (No. 10 of 1924), s. 25.

An action for seduction having come to trial, after plaintiff's counsel had made his opening statement, the trial Judge (Hanna J.) of his own motion, transferred the action to the Circuit Court, without any application for such transfer having been made to him by either party to the action and without giving them an opportunity of discussing the question of the transfer. Plaintiff appealed:—Held, by the Supreme Court, assuming, but without deciding, that Hanna, J., had jurisdiction to transfer the action of his own motion, that he ought not to have done so, as he had no evidence before him to determine whether the action ought to be transferred or not, there being nothing in the pleadings to indicate whether, if the jury awarded the plaintiff a sum exceeding the limit of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, the verdict would be set aside as excessive, and accordingly the order transferring the action must be set aside. As the appeal was the result of the...