O'Driscoll v Cork County Council

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 17 December 1931
• Date: 17 December 1931
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

Supreme Court.

O'Driscoll v. Cork Co. Council

PATRICK J. O'DRISCOLL

and

COUNTY COUNCIL OF THE COUNTY OF CORK, and in the MATTER of the COURTS OF JUSTICE ACTS, 1924 and 1928 (1)

Local Government - Abolition of district council - Solicitor to the council - Claim to a gratuity - Claim not admitted - Appeal to Minister for Local Government - Delay in appealing - Prescribed time limit - Mandamus - Statutory remedy - Whether an additional or exclusive remedy - Local Government Act, 1925 (No. 5 of 1925), sect. 44, sub-sects. 3 and 6,sect, 82 - Transfer of officers of district council to county council.

Appeal on behalf of the Cork County Council from an order of the High Court, dated the 25th day of March, 1930, making absolute a conditional order for a writ of mandamus, dated 29th July, 1929, commanding the Council, pursuant to sect. 44, sub-sect. 3, of the Local Government Act, 1925, to determine, for submission to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, the amount of the gratuity or compensation to which Patrick J. O'Driscoll, the prosecutor, was entitled, as solicitor to the former Rural District Council of Bandon.

The Bandon Rural District Council had ceased to exist on the 1st of October, 1925, by virtue of the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1925. The decision of the High Court is reported [1930] I.R. 611, where the facts are stated.

O'D. was appointed in 1917 solicitor to a rural district council by a resolution of that body, and he continued to act as such until the council was abolished on October 1st, 1925, under the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1925 On 14th February, 1927, he applied to the county council, to whom the powers and duties of the abolished rural district council had been transferred, for compensation for loss of his position as solicitor, and he received a reply stating that the matter would be submitted to the council in due course. He wrote several other letters without getting a satisfactory answer, the correspondence continuing up to March, 1929. On 24th February, 1927, he wrote to the Department of Local Government, putting before that Department his claim for loss of office. He subsequently applied for, and obtained, a conditional order for a writ of mandamus to compel the county council to determine the amount of the gratuity or compensation to which he was entitled under sect. 44, sub-sect. 3, of the Act.

Held that, assuming that O'D.'s right to a gratuity arose on October 1st, 1925, the conditional order must be made absolute, as O'D. had not been guilty of such delay as would deprive him of his remedy by mandamus; and, although sub-sect. 6 of the said sect. 44 provided that if an officer of a local body is aggrieved by the neglect or refusal of the local body to grant him a gratuity under the section, he may within six months of his ceasing to hold his office appeal to the Minister for Local Government, who may thereupon grant him any gratuity which should have been granted to him by the local body, and he shall thereupon be entitled to receive such gratuity from the local body, this sub-section provided an additional remedy, and not the only one, and one which in many circumstances might not be available.

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