Rabbette v Mayo County Council
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | O'Hanlon J. |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1984 |
| Neutral Citation | 1983 WJSC-HC 3432 |
| Court | High Court |
| Date | 01 January 1984 |
1983 WJSC-HC 3432
THE HIGH COURT
BETWEEN:
Subject Headings:
DAMAGES: assessment
Judgment delivered by O'Hanlon J. the 22nd day of April, 1983.
By Plenary Summons dated the 25th October, 1977, the Plaintiff claimed an injunction restraining the Defendants, their servants or agents from carrying out any blasting operations at Station Road, Castlebar, in the County of Mayo, in the vicinity of building sites which the Plaintiff had purchased for development purposes and on which he had already erected two semi-detached houses. He also claimed damages for nuisance, negligence and trespass, although no blasting operations had, in fact, been carried out by Mayo Co. Council at the time the proceedings were commenced.
There followed an application for an interlocutory injunction to restrain the Co. Council from engaging in blasting operations pending the hearing of the action, which application was, with the consent of all parties, treated as the trial of the action. The outcome was that on the 20th day of February, 1978, D'Arcy J. made an Order perpetually restraining the Defendant from carrying out blasting operations in the vicinity of the Plaintiff's property in such a way as to be a nuisance or to cause damage to the Plaintiff's said premises at McCormack's Estate, Station Road, The Curragh, Castlebar, in the County of Mayo.
By consent the Court reserved the question of damages, and now the issue of damages has been brought forward for determination by this Court, some five years after the claim for primary relief by way of injunction was heard and determined.
Having regard to the fact that the Plaintiff's claim for an injunction was brought in the form of a quia timet action before any blasting had actually taken place, and was heard and determined with consderable expedition, it would be reasonable to anticipate that the claim for damages would not amount to very much in such circumstances. Such, however, has not proved to be the case. The Plaintiff was by occupation a speculative builder at the time of the matters complained of in the proceedings, and he claims, in effect, that the threat of blasting operations by the County Council set back his entire building project by more than a year, with the result that the Bank on whom he relied to finance his business lost confidence in his creditworthiness, and by a type of chain reaction of events he found a potentially lucrative business disappearing in front of his eyes, so that he had to abandon it altogether and seek a different way of life which he has since pursued.
At the time the first threat of blasting operations arose, the Plaintiff had already built and contracted to sell his first two houses on the building estate in question. He says he was dependent on the return from those two houses to finance the taking up of options on other sites, which should, in turn have led on to building more houses and the generation of more and more profits as time went on.
I have the distinct impression that the Plaintiff could have held the first two purchasers to their contracts, and, if necessary sued them for specific performance, but when they displayed unwillingness to close in the face of the County Council's resolve to carry out blasting operations a pragmatic decision was taken to release them from their contracts, without forfeiture of deposits, and in one case to pay a sum...
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