Plaintiffs found to be liable on foot of settlement agreement

Contract law – Supreme Court dismissed two appeals save directing a new trial directed in respect of two particular issues - whether or not a settlement contained a particular default clause – whether the appellants were liable on foot of the default clause - history of the relationship between the parties and the litigation – sought damages of in excess of €4,500,000 together with a variety of other reliefs including injunctive relief. The statement of claim was delivered on 14th December, 2006 and defences and counterclaims - complaint about transfer of case to Dundalk - McKenzie friend - “conspiracy” involving a forged court order or documents improperly placed on court files – whether the parties entered into a settlement agreement - did the settlement agreement contain a default clause - agreement in writing was entered into - terms of that agreement were announced in part to McGovern J. when the settlement was being ruled - the settlement expressly contained the default clause – settled with the knowledge and agreement of the parties - contemporaneous record of what was said to the trial judge – Court satisfied that a settlement agreement was entered into by the parties – settlement included default clause – whether the plaintiffs are liable on foot of the agreement – payments in a total sum of €446,168 were made – order subsequently made for the outstanding sum of €653,832 - judgment mortgage was registered against the plaintiffs lands – liable for the sum of €653,832 – court orders – Central Office has two rather than one – absence of signatures - Chief Registrar concluded that the correct order is the one which contained as a schedule concluded that the nine paragraph settlement agreement rather than the eight paragraph settlement agreement - possible for people to interfere with a file or to tamper with a file – expert evidence stated that both copy agreements had been copied from the same source document – expert was of opinion that there was evidence to show that 8 clause agreement had been copied or scanned and the default clause removed - unable to say when or by whom this interference occurred - procedure by which High Court files may be inspected in an unsupervised fashion and where they are open to being interfered with is completely unsatisfactory – one of the plaintiff’s indicated that he could not be present due to alleged illness - granted a deferral – warning given – document submitted which alleges that that Supreme Court was itself guilty of an illegality in making the order which remitted the identified issues for trial - assertion of irregularities committed by registrars and principal officers within the Courts Service – asked the judge to recuse himself by virtue of his ex officio membership of the Courts Service Board – no reasonable apprehension of an unfair trial – Court finds that there was a settlement and that the Plaintiffs are liable on foot of the agreement.