Inland Fisheries Ireland v O'Baoill

JurisdictionIreland
JudgeMr. Justice Clarke
Judgment Date15 May 2015
Neutral Citation[2015] IESC 45
CourtSupreme Court
Docket Number[Appeal No: 95/2013],[S.C. No. 95 of 2013]
Date15 May 2015

[2015] IESC 45

THE SUPREME COURT

Clarke J.

MacMenamin J.

Charleton J.

[Appeal No: 95/2013]

Between
Inland Fisheries Ireland
Plaintiff/Respondent
and
Peadar O'Baoill, John Gerard Boyle and John Boyle
Defendants/Appellants

Fisheries – Access to land – Admission of evidence – Appellants seeking to introduce new evidence – Whether evidence can be admitted

Facts: The plaintiff/respondent, Inland Fisheries, filed a statement of claim and a defence and counterclaim were filed by the defendants/appellants, Mr O”Baoill, Mr J G Boyle and Mr J Boyle (the Fishermen), challenging the right of Inland Fisheries to bring the proceedings. Thereafter, in November, 2011, a modular trial was directed and the first issues to be tried were specified to be: 1) does Inland Fisheries have the right to manage, control and regulate access to the lands within the Gweebarra Fishery; 2) is Inland Fisheries entitled to the reliefs sought against the defendants in respect of those lands; and 3) are the defendants entitled to the reliefs set out in the counterclaim in relation to the same lands. The trial judge concluded that Inland Fisheries did have the right to manage, control and regulate the relevant part of the fishery, that Inland Fisheries was entitled to the relevant reliefs because she was not satisfied that the Fishermen had established that they had an equal or superior right to a state agency, and that issue 3) was academic in the light of the decisions on issues 1) and 2). The Fishermen appealed to the Supreme Court against the decision of the trial judge. An application was made by the Fishermen seeking to introduce new evidence for the purposes of the appeal. They suggested that there may be evidence which would establish that, rather than one Mr McDonnell having any title to the fisheries in question, those fisheries were vested in the Minister for Communications, Energy and National Resources. Inland Fisheries argued that the new evidence could not be relevant to the issues before the Court on appeal for it could not affect the actual result of any of the issues required to be determined in the first module. The Fishermen argued that a failure to disturb aspects of the findings of the trial judge which could be shown to be wrong by the new evidence sought to be adduced, could have adverse effects on future modules.

Held by Clarke J that, having followed O.58, r.8 of the Rules of the Superior Courts and Murphy v Minister for Defence [1991] 2 IR 161, to the extent that it might be necessary in the context of any subsequent module to determine the chain of title to the relevant part of the fishery at some date prior to the time at which the first module was tried, it would be open to the Fishermen to put forward evidence to suggest that the findings in that regard by the trial judge, although entirely sustainable on the evidence which was before her, may be incorrect as a result of additional evidence which is now available. Clarke J also held that to allow the issue of the chain of title to be agitated before the Court would be wholly unsatisfactory for two reasons: firstly, it is clear that the new evidence could not affect the actual findings of the trial judge in respect of the issues which she was required to determine in the first module, and secondly, it must be open to significant doubt as to whether, even if the evidence were admitted and even if the Court felt that such evidence casts some doubt as to the correctness of the findings of the trial judge concerning the ownership of the relevant part of the fishery, the Court could, almost at first instance, make its own finding. Clarke J held that the proposed new evidence was not relevant to the issues which arose on the appeal even though it may well be relevant, dependent on the subsequent progress of the proceedings before the High Court, in respect of subsequent modules of the trial.

Clarke J held that he was satisfied that the chain of title to the fishery at the northern bank of the Gweebarra river was not relevant to the specific issues which the trial judge had to determine on the first module of the trial and was not, therefore, relevant to the issues which specifically arose on the appeal. Clarke J therefore concluded that the question of the chain of title prior to the trial of the first module in the High Court was not an issue which could properly be raised on the appeal and it followed, therefore, that the evidence sought to be introduced could not itself be relevant, for it only touches on that question. In those circumstances Clarke J dismissed the application.

Appeal dismissed.

Judgment of Mr. Justice Clarke delivered the 15th May, 2015.
1. Introduction
1.1

These proceedings concern fishing rights in Donegal. The proceedings generally are complex. Certain issues were tried before the High Court (Laffoy J.) as a first module and are the subject of a judgment delivered on the 19th December, 2012 ( Inland Fisheries Ireland v. O'Baoill & ors [2012] I.E.H.C. 550). On the issues which were then before the High Court in that first module it can, I think, be said that the plaintiff/respondent (‘Inland Fisheries’) was successful. The defendants/appellants (‘the Fishermen’) have appealed to this Court against the decision of Laffoy J.

1.2

It is in that context that an application has now been made on behalf of the Fishermen seeking to introduce new evidence for the purposes of the appeal. In order to understand the issues which arise in the context of that application it is necessary to say a little more about the High Court judgment.

2. The High Court Judgment
2.1

As pointed out by Laffoy J., in a detailed history of the proceedings up to the date of her judgment, an extensive statement of claim was filed by Inland Fisheries and an extensive defence and counterclaim was filed by the Fishermen which, in substance, challenged the right of Inland Fisheries to bring these proceedings and also asserted certain rights of their own.

2.2

Thereafter, on the 21st November, 2011, Murphy J. directed a modular trial and specified that the first issues to be tried were to be:-

(a) Does Inland Fisheries have the right to manage, control and regulate access to the lands within what is referred to as the ‘Gweebarra Fishery’ as identified on relevant maps;

(b) Is Inland Fisheries entitled to the reliefs sought against the defendants in respect of those lands; and

(c) Are the defendants entitled to the reliefs set out in the counterclaim in relation to the same lands.

2.3

It is clear from para. 79 of her judgment that the trial judge, correctly in my view, considered that point (a) was specifically concerned with the current position in respect of the entitlements of the parties and not with any historical position which might have some relevance to other issues in the case but which was not relevant to the issues which fell to be determined in the context of the first module of the trial. Indeed, the very point which the trial judge makes in para. 79 is that certain points made might have had an effect on the entitlement of Inland Fisheries in 2009, but not as of the date of trial, and might, therefore, be relevant in other modules but were not relevant to the issue which required to be determined at (a).

2.4

The trial judge went on to conclude that Inland Fisheries did have, as at the time of her judgment, the right to manage, control and regulate the relevant part of the fishery.

2.5

So far as issue (b) is concerned, the trial judge concluded that Inland Fisheries was entitled to the relevant reliefs because she was not satisfied that the Fishermen had established that they had an equal or superior right to a state agency (there being some doubt about which state agency) in respect of the southern bank and a Mr. McDonnell in respect of the northern bank. So far as issue (c) was concerned, the ultimate decision of the trial judge was that this question was academic in the light of the decisions on issues (a) and (b), for she came to the view, at para. 88, that the Fishermen had not established ‘any right, public or otherwise, to fish in the freshwater part of the Gweebarra river, including the part thereof the subject of this module’.

2.6

Thus, it is clear that the decision of the trial judge, on the specific issues which were before her in the first module, was entirely prospective. She held that, as of the time of the trial, Inland Fisheries had established a sufficient interest to maintain the proceedings and the Fishermen had not established any entitlement to fish, whether as a matter of public or private right. It is as against those findings that this appeal lies.

2.7

However, there is one further aspect of the judgment of the trial judge to which reference is necessary because it is relevant to the specific issue which arises on this application. It will be recalled that the finding of the trial judge on issue (b) indicated that Inland Fisheries was entitled to the relevant relief because the Fishermen had failed to establish any right which, so far as the northern bank of the Gweebarra river was concerned, was equal or greater than the rights of a Mr. McDonnell. The trial judge had proceeded, in the course of her judgment, to consider Mr. McDonnell's title and to note that a predecessor to Inland Fisheries (the Northern Regional Fisheries Board), had acquired a contractual entitlement to manage, control, use and regulate a fishery purportedly owned by Mr. McDonnell as a...

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