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Supreme Court, on appeal from the Court of Appeal: (a) substitutes a sum of €26,001.26 for the award of interest of €57,325 made in the Court of Appeal; (b) reverses the decision of the Court of Appeal to include the award of interest in consideration of whether the award had exceeded the lodgement, on the grounds that the interest did not affect the question of whether the plaintiff had acted reasonably at the time in refusing the offer implicit in the lodgement; (c) determines that a lodgement was not invalid by virtue of the fact that it did not spell out all of the issues it was intended to meet; but (d) determines that, where a plaintiff's award fell short of the lodgement by a small amount, the court had discretion to depart from the presumptive order that the plaintiff should bear all the costs from the date of the lodgement.
O'Donnell J (majority decision): Purchase of franchises - purchase of business from franchisee by owner - award of €356,200 in High Court - prior issue of Calderbank letter - lodgements - topped up of €362,243.23 - award about €6K short of lodgement - Order 22 Rule 6 of the Rules of the Superior Courts - costs from date of second lodgement - whether lodgement complied with Order 22, rule 1(5) failure to specify causes of action in respect of which the payments were made - lodgement declared a nullity - interest pursuant to section 22, Courts Act 1981 - discretion of trial judge to award interest pursuant to Courts Act - inclusion of interest in lodgement - inclusion of reduced award for interest (€26K) in bringing award over lodgement - assessment of whether plaintiff acted reasonably in refusing the offer implicit in the lodgement - whether failure to 'beat' a lodgement by a very small margin should automatically lead the plaintiff to bear the costs of the defendant from the time of the lodgement.
McKechnie J (partially dissenting): [Judgment not yet available]
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