Hegan v Carolan

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 15 December 1915
• Date: 15 December 1915
• Court: King's Bench Division (Ireland)

Hegan

and

Carolan (1).

K. B. Div.

CASES

DETERMINED BY

THE KING'S BENCH DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL,

AND BY

THE COURT FOR CROWN CASES RESERVED.

1916.

Trespass to Land — Conflicting Claims — Acts amounting to an Intention to assume Possession.

B. was the owner of a field let in conacre to the defendant on a letting expiring in November, 1914. B. sold the field to the plaintiff in April, 1915. The defendant continued to keep his cattle on it. In July, 1915, the plaintiff entered the field and cut down some trees. Two days afterwards he broke the lock on the gate of the field and entered and put his own cattle there. They were almost immediately afterwards driven off by the defendant. The plaintiff having subsequently brought an action against the defendant for trespass to the lands:

Held, that the acts of the plaintiff showed that he intended to assume possession and did the acts in assertion of his right to possession, and that the plaintiff had thereby obtained a possession sufficient to entitle him to maintain trespass.

Trial of action before Pim J., without a jury.

The facts, in so far as they are material to the present report, were as follows:—

Howard Brown, the plaintiff's predecessor in title, had let a field known as the field of Anny to the defendant in conacre for the season ending the 1st November, 1914. The defendant alleged that during the currency of this letting, viz., on the 30th October, 1914, Brown agreed to sell him the field. There was no corroboration of this evidence; but, relying on it, as he said, the defendant remained on in possession of the field. On the 6th of April, 1915, Brown conveyed to the plaintiff his entire interest in (inter alia) the field of Anny, and the plaintiff in his evidence stated that formal possession was given to him; but the defendant in pursuance of an alleged right continued in actual possession, and kept his cattle on the field for about a fortnight, in spite of the plaintiff's protests, and according to his own evidence continued to graze them on the field from time to time. On the 22nd July two of the plaintiff's workmen, on his instructions, entered the field of Anny and cut down a tree; and on the 24th July, the

plaintiff broke a lock which the defendant had put on the gate of the field, and put his cattle thereon, which cattle the defendant almost immediately drove away. The defendant remained in occupation of the lands from that time till the date of issue of the writ.

The plaintiff brought the present action claiming damages in trespass.

Horner, K.C., and Monroe, for the plaintiffs, cited Booth v. M'Manus (1); Lows v. Telford (2); Butcher v. Butcher (3).

The Solicitor-General (James O'Connor K.C.) and...