Court of Appeal dismisses solicitor negligence appeal and orders appellant to pay respondent costs.

APPROVED NO REDACTION NEEDED

THE COURT OF APPEAL

Court of Appeal Record No.: 2025 88

High Court Record No.: 2018 10665P

Neutral Citation No.: [2026] IECA 115

Binchy J. Pilkington J.

O’Moore J

BETWEEN/

FINBAR TOLAN

PLAINTIFF/

APPELLANT

- AND -

JOHN BRADY AND JOHN DILLON-LEETCH BOTH TRADING UNDER THE

STYLE AND TITLE OF DILLON LEETCH AND COMERFORD SOLICTORS

DEFENDANTS/

RESPONDENTS

RULING ON COSTS of Mr. Justice Binchy delivered on the 29th day of June 2026

1. In these proceedings, the appellant claimed damages from his former solicitors, the respondents herein, arising out of unsuccessful action that the appellant had brought against Connaught Gold Cooperative Society, in which the respondents had acted on his behalf. The proceedings were dismissed by Owens J. in the High Court in a judgment delivered on 26th February 2025, and the appellant appealed to this Court. That appeal was dismissed by this Court in a judgment delivered on 26th March 2026. In the judgment, the Court indicated that its preliminary view was that since the respondents had been entirely successful in the appeal, they were entitled to the costs of the appeal. The appellant was given liberty to deliver submissions to argue for a different order as to costs, and they submitted submissions in this regard on 17th April 2026. Replying submissions were filed on behalf of the respondent on 6th May 2026. In his submissions, the appellant accepts that the ordinary position under s. 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act, 2015 is that costs follow the event. However, he submits that this is not an inflexible rule and that the court retains a discretion to depart from it where the interests of justice so require. He submits that special circumstances have arisen in this case such that it would be unjust to make “an immediate final order for costs against him”. However, he has not identified any such special circumstances.

2. The appellant makes a general assertion that there has been fraud and perjury perpetrated against him, particulars of which he says are provided in a grounding affidavit that he has issued for the purposes of an application to be made pursuant to Practice Direction CA14, for the purpose of advancing an application to this Court for a review of its judgment on his appeal. However, leaving aside the question of whether or not he could rely on the contents of such an affidavit for the purposes of resisting an application for costs, he has failed to advance any such application or provide the grounding affidavit relied upon. Moreover, while the appellant did purport, for the first time at the hearing of this appeal, to argue that a diary entry relied upon by the respondents in the appeal was a forgery, he had expressly eschewed such an argument in the proceedings before the High Court, and it was accordingly rejected on appeal.

3. The appellant also submits that he should not be subjected to the ordinary rules of costs because, he submits, this case raises issues of public interest, but he fails to identify any public interest engaged by these proceedings, and as the respondents submit, he brought these proceedings entirely for his own personal gain. There are no legal principles of general interest at issue here, and the grounds of appeal relate only to issues that are particular to the appellant himself. That this is so is apparent from the appellant’s own written submissions in which he states, at para. 8: - “The issues raised concerned the fairness of the plenary hearing, the treatment of the advice on proofs, the provenance and significance of the diary, the treatment of medical evidence, and the factual basis upon which the High Court judgment rested.”

4. In the alternative, the appellant asked that this Court would grant a stay on any costs order that it might make, pending the determination of his application for a review of the judgment of the Court pursuant to Practice Direction CA14. However, since he has failed to advance any such application, this application in turn falls away.

5. Finally, the appellant invites the Court to make a protective costs order in his favour. It is apparent that the appellant misunderstands the concept of a protective costs order and the circumstances in which it may be made by the court, and it clearly has no application to the proceedings brought by the appellant herein exclusively for his own personal benefit and involving as they do the services provided to him by his solicitors.

6. It is apparent that the respondents have been entirely successful, within the meaning of that term as used in s. 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act, 2015, and that there are no circumstances of the kind provided for by that section, or otherwise, that should cause the Court to do anything other than make an order directing the appellant to pay the costs incurred by the respondents in resisting this appeal. Accordingly, an order will be made requiring the appellant to discharge the costs of the respondents incurred in connection with this appeal, the same to be adjudicated in default of agreement.

7. Since this ruling is being delivered electronically, O’Moore J. and Pilkington J. have authorised me to confirm their agreement with the same.