Lord Defreyne v Fitzgibbon and Others

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 04 July 1903
• Date: 04 July 1903
• Docket Number: (1902. No. 583.)
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)

Lord Defreyne

and

Fitzgibbon and Others (No. 1) (1).

Appeal.

(1902. No. 583.)

CASES

DETERMINED BY

THE CHANCERY DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND

AND BY

THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL.

1904.

Practice — Chancery Division — Action charging conspiracy — Plaintiff seeking for injunction and damages — Trial of issues and assessment of damages by jury.

In an action charging several defendants with a conspiracy to compel the plaintiff to sell his property at a price below its value, by boycotting, threats, intimidation, and other unlawful means, the plaintiff sought to have the defendants restrained from doing the acts complained of by an injunction, and also asked for damages for the injuries already done. One of the defendants asked to have the issues of fact and the amount of damages ascertained and assessed by a jury:—

Held, by the Court of Appeal (Lord Ashbourne, C., and Walker and Holmes, L.JJ.), that having regard to the nature of the case, and the dates of the several proceedings therein, the action must be treated as substantially an action for unliquidated damages, and that it was a proper case in which, in the exercise of its discretion, the Court should direct the issues of fact and the amount of damages to be ascertained and assessed by a jury.

Appeal from an order of the Right Hon. the Vice-Chancellor of Ireland dated the 29th June, 1903, refusing an application that the issues of fact in the action should be tried by a jury.

The writ of summons in this action named as defendants several Members of Parliament and other persons members of or connected with the United Irish League, and also a Limited Company, the proprietor of a newspaper called the Freeman's Journal. it was issued on the 13th June, 1902, and was indorsed as follows:—

“The plaintiff's claim is to restrain the defendants, their agents, and servants, and all other members of the United Irish League, and all other persons combining and conspiring with them, from conspiring to injure and injuring the plaintiff.

1. By conspiring to compel the plaintiff to sell his property at a price below its value. (a) by unlawfully procuring or conspiring to procure the tenants of the plaintiff to conspire to break and to break their contracts with the plaintiff, and not to pay the rents which they were lawfully bound to pay; (b) by unlawfully conspiring to prevent by threats, intimidation, and boycotting, persons who were willing to enter into contracts with the plaintiff to take the lands of the plaintiff and to pay rents, from entering into such contracts and taking such lands; (c) by unlawfully conspiring by threats and menaces to prevent the plaintiff's land agent from performing his duty as such to the plaintiff, and to intimidate him from doing so, and by unlawfully inciting others to do the same; and by actual acts of violence to such agent, and incitement to same; (d) by unlawfully conspiring to boycott and intimidate, and by incitement to boycott and intimidate, and by actual intimidation and boycotting, to compel all tenants of the plaintiff who would not join in such conspiracy to join in same; (e) by watching and besetting the farms on the plaintiff's estate, and by libelling and picketing tenants about to pay their lawful rents, with intent to prevent them from so doing, and by conspiring to induce and inducing others to do the same.

2. And for damages.

The defendants J. E. Redmond, M.P., John O'Donnell, M.P., David Sheehy, Laurence Grinnell, Alfred Webb, A. J. Kettle, Patrick White, Wm. O'Brien, Michael Davitt, John Dillon, M.P., E. Haviland Burke, M.P., John M'Inerney, Thomas Harrington, John Roche, M.P., J. P. Farrell, M.P., Dr. Mulcahy, J. G. Swift MacNeill, M.P., Aiderman Farrell, Joseph Delahunt, John Muldoon, and Richard M'Ghee, are members of the standing committee of the United Irish League, and are sued on behalf of, and as representing, all the members of the said United Irish League.

The defendants John O'Donnell, M.P., and John Dillon, M.P., are sued personally, as well as representing, and on behalf of, all the members of the United Irish League.”

Immediately after issuing the writ, the plaintiff served notice of motion for an interlocutory injunction. The motion was listed for hearing in the month of July, but, owing to the state of the Vice-Chancellor's list, was not heard before the Long Vacation in 1902. It was not re-entered in the following sittings.

The plaintiff delivered his statement of claim on the 18th February, 1903, to the following effect:—

“1. The plaintiff is the owner of large estates, the greater portion of which is situate in the counties of Sligo and Roscommon, and the residue in the county of Galway. The said estates comprise 1788 holdings, in the hands of 1692 occupying tenants, whose gross annual rental amounts to £11,572. Judicial rents have been fixed upon 911 holdings, and a considerable portion of the plaintiff's said estates is let annually by the season for grazing purposes only. The plaintiff's tenants paid their rents with reasonable punctuality up to the year 1901.

2. In or about the year 1898 an organisation styling itself The United Irish League was founded, amongst the objects of which are, as stated in its ‘Constitution,’ the abolition of landlordism in Ireland by means of a universal and compulsory system of sale of the landlord's interest, together with the reinstatement of tenants evicted in connection with the Land War, and the restoration to the legal status of tenants of caretakers and future tenants whose rights were sacrificed by the operation of the 7th section of the Land Act of 1887; the putting an end to periodical distress and famine in the West by abolishing on terms of just compensation to all interests affected the unnatural system by which all the richest areas of that region are monopolised by a small ring of graziers, and restoring the people to the occupation of these lands in holdings of a sufficient size and quality; the restitution to Ireland of the amount by which it is overtaxed, and the appropriation of the accumulated amount to such uses as facilitating the abolition of landlordism throughout Ireland, the redistribution of the non-resident grazing ranches of Connaught, and the reinstatement of the evicted tenants. The membership of the United Irish League is very numerous, and it is impossible to sue all the members individually. It has branches all over Ireland, but its operations are controlled and its funds administered by a head executive called the standing committee of the National directory. By this body the supreme government of the United Irish League is carried on, and it meets annually to elect the officers of the League. The defendant John E. Redmond is the president of the said United Irish League; the defendants John O'Donnell, David Sheehy, and Laurence Ginnell are its secretaries; the defendants Alfred Webb, A. J. Kettle, and Patrick White are its treasurers; and the defendants John E. Redmond, William O'Brien, Michael Davitt, John Dillon, E. Haviland Burke, John MacInerney, Thomas Harrington, John Roche, J. P. Farrell, Dr. Mulcahy, J. G. Swift MacNeill, Alderman J. J. Farrell, Joseph Delahunt, John Muldoon, and Richard McGhee are members of the standing committee. The said defendants control the operations and funds of the organisation, and adequately represent the entire body of its members for the purpose of this action. The defendant, Bernard Harte, is president of the branch of the said League established at Frenchpark, on the plaintiff's estate; the defendant Denis Johnston is a paid organiser of the said League; and the defendants John Fitzgibbon, Patrick Webb, Owen McGarry, John Cullinan, Conor O'Kelly, and William Duffy are members of the said League.

3. The defendant company is the proprietor and publisher of the newspapers called the Freeman's Journal and the Evening Telegraph.

4. In the year 1901 the defendants, with intent to injure the plaintiff, wrongfully and maliciously conspired together to compel him to grant to his tenants a permanent abatement of 6s. 8d. in the £ sterling upon the rents which they had contracted, and were legally bound to pay to him; and also to compel the plaintiff to sell his estates for prices less than their true value to the occupying tenants thereon.

5. In furtherance of the said conspiracy the defendants unlawfully and maliciously procured and conspired to procure the tenants of the plaintiff to conspire to break and to break their contracts with the plaintiff, and to refuse to pay and not to pay to the plaintiff or his agent the rents which the said tenants were and might become lawfully bound to pay, and which the plaintiff was or might become lawfully entitled to be paid under the contracts of tenancy between him and his tenants.

6. In furtherance of the said conspiracy the defendants unlawfully and maliciously conspired to prevent and did prevent by threats, intimidation, and boycotting persons who were willing to enter into contracts with the plaintiff to take the plaintiff's lands, and pay him rent therefor, from entering into such contracts, and from taking such lands.

7. In furtherance of the said conspiracy the defendants unlawfully and maliciously conspired to boycott and intimidate, and to incite others to boycott and intimidate, and did unlawfully and maliciously boycott and intimidate, and incite others to boycott and intimidate, those tenants of the plaintiff who were unwilling to join in the said conspiracy, in order to compel all tenants of the plaintiff to join in the same.

8. In furtherance of the said conspiracy the defendants unlawfully and maliciously conspired to watch and beset, and to incite others to watch and beset, and did unlawfully and maliciously watch and beset, and incite others to watch and beset, the farms on the plaintiff's estate belonging to tenants who were about to pay to the plaintiff their lawful...