Monahan v McNamara

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1925
• Docket Number: (1924. No. 8302.)
• Date: 01 January 1925

Monahan v. M'Namara

MICHAEL MONAHAN

Plaintiff

and

MARTIN M'NAMARA,Defendant (1)

(1924. No. 8302.)

Supreme Court.

Practice - Transfer of action - Action commenced in High Court - Transfer to Circuit Court - Action of tort - Personal injuries - Damages exceeding £300 - Courts of Justice Act, 1924 (No. 10 of 1924), sect. 25 and 48.

Plaintiff, a farmer's son, instituted an action in the High Court for assault, and claimed £500 damages. Defendant, who was also a farmer, applied to have the action transferred to the Circuit Court, that Court having jurisdiction in an action for tort when the claim does not exceed £300. In his affidavit in support of the application to transfer, defendant said that he had already been acquitted by a jury on a charge for the assault, and that he only struck the plaintiff in self-defence. In an affidavit resisting the application, a doctor described the plaintiff's injuries, which were of a serious character.

Held (reversing Murnaghan J.), that the action ought not to be transferred to the Circuit Court, as, having regard to the uncontradicted evidence of the doctor, the Court could not say that a verdict exceeding £300 would be set aside as excessive and unreasonable.

Connor v. O'Brien, [1925] 2 I.R. 24, applied.

Appeal against an order of Murnaghan J., dated the 14th November, 1924, transferring the action for trial before the Circuit Judge of the County of Limerick.

By the writ, which was issued on the 15th October, 1924, the plaintiff claimed £500 damages for assault.

The defendant, a farmer, in his affidavit grounding the application to transfer the action, swore that he had a good and valid defence to the action; that on a charge for the same assault he was found "not guilty" and acquitted by a jury of the County of Clare on the 1st October, 1924, at the Ennis sittings of the South-Western Circuit, and that the plaintiff had no visible means of paying his (defendant's) costs should a verdict not be found for the plaintiff.

The plaintiff, a farmer's son, in his affidavit resisting the application, swore as follows: "The assault herein was committed on the 31st October, 1922. On that date I was having my dinner about 12 o'clock with my mother in my house when the defendant's sister Nora called me at the door. I went out in answer to her call, when the defendant rushed from behind the house, and, without any notice, struck me a violent blow on the head with a four-pronged manure fork. I was felled to the...