Wicklow County Council v O'Reilly and Others

JurisdictionIreland
JudgeMr Justice Clarke
Judgment Date08 February 2006
Neutral Citation[2006] IEHC 265
Docket Number[No. 89 SP/2005]
CourtHigh Court
Date08 February 2006
WICKLOW COUNTY COUNCIL v O'REILLY & ORS

BETWEEN

WICKLOW COUNTY COUNCIL
PLAINTIFF
-and-
JOHN O'REILLY BROWNFIELD RESTORATION IRELAND LIMITED RAYMOND STOKES ANNE STOKES SWALCLIFFE LIMITED TRADING AS DUBLIN WASTE LOUIS MORIARTY EILEEN MORIARTY A1 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT LIMITED WILLIAM JOHN CAMPBELL ANTHONY DEAN UNA DEAN
DEFENDANTS

[2006] IEHC 265

[No. 89 SP/2005]

THE HIGH COURT

PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE:

Parties

Application to substitute parties - Joinder of director of defendant company - Whether all necessary parties joined to proceedings - Rules of the Superior Courts 1986 (SI15/1986), O 15, r 13 - Wicklow County Council v Fenton (No 2) [2002] 4 IR 44 applied - Order joining two parties and dismissing proceedings as against two defendants (2005/89SP - Clarke J - 8/2/2006) [2006] IEHC 265 Wicklow County Council v O'Reilly

SOUTHERN MINERAL OIL LTD, RE 1999 1 IR 237

RSC O.15 r2

RSC O.15 r13

O'REILLY v GRANVILLE 1971 IR 90

EVANS LTD v CHARRINGTON & CO LTD 1986 QB 810

PROBE DATA SYSTEMS, RE 1989 BCLC 561

RSC O.20 r5(3)

WICKLOW CO COUNCIL v FENTON (NO 2) 2002 4 IR 44

CORK CO COUNCIL v O'REGAN & ORS UNREP CLARKE 17.06.2005 2005/12/2461

Mr Justice Clarke
1

The plaintiff, ("the County Council"), brings these proceedings for the purposes of seeking orders designed to remediate or mitigate alleged environmental pollution at Whitestown, County Wicklow. These applications concern the 8th to 11th named defendants and others who are sought to be joined in substitution for such defendants. All of those parties are connected. The County Council seeks to add Dean Waste Company Limited, (Dean Waste), or to substitute that company for the 8th named defendant, ("A1"). The County Council also seeks to add Samuel Stears as a further defendant. In a separate application the 8th to 11th named defendants seek that they be struck out as parties either on the basis that the proceedings disclose no reasonable cause of action against them or alternatively that the proceedings are unsustainable and bound to fail.

2

The circumstances leading to both applications are not in dispute. It would appear that extensive inspections of lands at Whitestown were carried out by Environmental Consultants who were retained on behalf of the County Council to coordinate an investigation of the lands concerned to ascertain the identity of persons likely to have been responsible for unlawfully disposing of waste on the lands. Investigations in an area of the lands, which for the purposes of the investigation became known as Landfill No 4, revealed the presence of waste material which had been dumped in plastic sacks with the legend "A1 Waste" on same. Investigations carried out by the County Council at the Companies Office and of the Business Names Register revealed that there were a number of A1 Waste names listed either as companies or as business names involved in the waste disposal/environmental management field. These included the following business names: A1 Waste Recycling, A1 Environmental Management and A1 Management, all of which were trading names of Dean Waste.

3

The Companies Office searches at that time also revealed the existence of the company A1. The registered offices of both Dean Waste and A1 are located at the same address. It would appear that the Council believed that the 9th and 10th named defendants were directors of both companies. In addition it would appear that Samuel Stears is also now a director of Dean Waste. However, it is now accepted that A1 was not incorporated at the time when the events which give rise to these proceedings occurred. It is suggested that there was a genuine and bona fide mistake on the part of the Council as to the correct identity of what it describes as the "A1 Waste" defendants. Due to the number of similar business names registered to the same address under the directorship of the same or similar parties, it is suggested that the correct "A1 Waste" defendants should in fact have been Dean Waste on the basis that all "A1 Waste" trading names, which the Council has traced, can be identified as being owned by Dean Waste, and that at least one of the trading names so discovered, A1 Waste Management, was registered as a business name of Dean Waste in 1996, and the investigations of Landfill No. 4 indicate waste dumped there from about 1997 onwards. In this regard, reliance is placed on evidence that the telephone number on the "A1 Waste" black refuse sacks discovered in Landfill No. 4 is the telephone number for "A1 Waste."

4

Finally the County Council rely on the fact that they wrote to A1 prior to the institution of proceedings in relation to the matters with which I am concerned and received no response of any kind from that defendant or its advisers to that letter.

5

At the hearing before me a further complication concerning the directors of both A1 and Dean Waste emerged. This in part stems from the fact that it would appear that there are two Anthony Deans, father and son, of the same address. While the County Council does not appear to have been aware until the hearing of the existence of the two Mr Deans, it seems that it was Mr Dean Senior who was in fact served with the proceedings.

6

It is now clear that so far as Dean Waste is concerned, Anthony Dean Senior is and at all material times was a director. Una Dean was a director at the time of...

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