Fraher v Waterford County Council

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 06 July 1926
• Date: 06 July 1926
• Court: High Court (Irish Free State)

Fraher

and

County Council of Waterford

Collection of rates - Defalcations by rate collector -Irregular check on collector's accounts - Non-compliance with Public Bodies Order, 1904, Arts. 93, 96, 97, 100 - Issue of certificates false in fact - Conduct of officer of the county council enabling collector to embezzle without detection -Acts of gross negligence and misconduct on the part of county officers distinguished from mere passive negligence on their part - Discharge of surety.

A county council, under Art. 97 of the Public Bodies Order, 1904, authorised their secretary to appoint a deputy to examine the books of a collector of poor rate, and thesecretary appointed H., the clerk of a rural district council, who had been regularly appointed to examine the books every year for many years past. The actual checking was done by H. and by M., the assistant clerk of the same rural district council. Instead of following the procedure laid down by the Public Bodies Order, 1904, H. and M., although aware of that procedure, followed a different method, which was of no value, and which would not disclose cases in which the collector failed altogether to account for moneys received by him. A rate collector of the county council had, in a large number of cases, recovered the amounts due to the council, but had failed to account for any of them. H. and M. regularly sent in to the secretary of the county council the report mentioned in Art. 97 of the Public Bodies Order, 1904, and in each of these reports it was certified that the collector had produced all his books for examination. On the evidence the Court was satisfied that at no single examination were all the books produced, and that all the certificates were false in that respect. The reports also purported to show the "amount shown by receipts...