Finlay v Murtagh

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1979
• Date: 01 January 1979
• Docket Number: [1976 No. 1206 P.]
• Court: Supreme Court

(S.C.)

Finlay

and

Murtagh

Client claiming damages for negligence of his solicitor - Whether plaintiff entitled to trial by judge and jury -Whether claim founded on contract or tort -Courts of Justice Act, 1924 (No. 10), s. 94.

Section 94 of the Act of 1924 states that nothing in the Act shall prejudice the right of any party to an action in the High Court (not being an action for a liquidated sum, or an action for the enforcement or for damages for the breach of a contract) to have questions of fact tried by a jury in such cases as he might theretofore of right have so required, but that no party to an action in the High Court for a liquidated sum or an action for the enforcement or for damages for the breach of a contract or in an action for the recovery of land shall be entitled to a jury, unless the court shall consider a jury necessary or desirable for the proper trial of the action. The plaintiff claimed damages from the defendant in the High Court for the alleged negligence of the defendant, when action as the plaintiff's solicitor, in failing to institute an action on behalf of the plaintiff against a third party within the period permitted by the Statute of Limitations, 1957. The plaintiff served on the defendant notice of trial of the action by a judge with a jury but the defendant contended that the action should be tried by a judge alone. An...