Irish Permanent Building Society v Caldwell and Others

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Keane
• Judgment Date: 21 December 1979
• Neutral Citation: 1976 WJSC-HC 1388
• Court: High Court
• Docket Number: No. 655 7 P./1979
• Date: 21 December 1979

Irish Permanent Building Society v Caldwell

BETWEEN:

THE IRISH PERMANENT BUILDING SOCIETY

Plaintiffs,

and

SEAMUS CALDWELL AND OTHERS

Defendants.

1976 WJSC-HC 1388

No. 655 7 P./1979

THE HIGH COURT

PRACTICE

Procedure

1 Judgment of Mr. Justice Keanedelivered the 21st day of December 1979.

2 This is an application pursuant to Order 19, Rule 28, of the Rules of the Superior Courts for an Order directing that thePlaintiffs"pleadings herein be struck out and the action dismissed on the grounds that the pleadings disclosed no reasonable cause of action or that the action is frivolous or vexatious.

3 It is conceded on behalf of the Applicants that, for the purposes of this application, it is necessary to assume that any averments of facts contained in the Statement of Claim delivered on behalf of the Plaintiffs on the 23rd October, 1979, will be supported in evidence if and when the action comes on for hearing.

4 The Plaintiffs are a building society registered under the provisions of the Building Societies Act, 1976. They claim that thegranting by the first-named Defendant, who is the Registrar of Building Societies under that Act, of a Certificate of Incorporation under Section II of that Act to the second-named Defendant on foot of an Agreement by the Defendant (other than the first three Defendants) is null and void, as is the purported registration of the rules of the second-named Defendant.

5 Paragraph 4 of the Statement of Claim sets out a number of grounds on which it is claimed that the registration of the second-named Defendant and the granting to of a Certificate are void and Ultra vires,in particular, it is claimed that the second-named Defendant is not a Building Society within the meaning of Section 2 of the Act of 1976, that there was no agreement on the rules pursuant to the requirements of the Act, that the second-named Defendant is a subsidiary of the third- named Defendant (the Irish Life Assurance Company Limited) and is not an autonomous body capable of being controlled by its members and that the rules did not comply with the requirements of the Act of 1976, in so far as those rules provide for multiple votes by single members.

6 It is submitted on behalf of the Defendant that the Plaintiff have no locus standi to maintain the present action. It is pointed out that the Statement of Claim contains no allegation that the Plaintiffssuffered or will suffer any damage as a result of the registration of the second-named Defendant as a Building Society or the grant of a Certificate to them and that it is not alleged that any proprietary or other right peculiar to them will be in any way infringed by such registration or the grant of such a Certificate. It is submitted on their behalf that the Act of 1970 plainly entrusts the control and regulation of Building Societies to the first-named Defendant and provides for the prosecution of persons who act in contravention of the provision of the Act.

7 The Defendant submit that, where a statute prohibits the doing of a particular act affecting the public, no person has a right of action against another merely because he has done...