Case Reports

The High Court has ruled that the HSE cannot charge hospital users as private patients until they clearly consent to such treatment. As such, the HSE is only able to apply certain charges to private patients after they had consented and cannot automatically treat the user as a private patient for th

The High Court has ruled that an applicant was out of time to challenge the Teaching Council’s refusal to register her as a teacher. The applicant had applied to work as a post-primary teacher but was refused on the basis that all her relevant qualifications were for teaching adults. Deliverin

The Supreme Court has allowed Gemma O’Doherty and John Waters leave to bring an appeal in their challenge to the emergency lockdown measures from March 2020. However, the court only decided to hear a very narrow point of law and will not hear an appeal on the merits of the claim. The court hel

The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal brought by two plaintiffs in defamation proceedings which had been rejected by a jury. The plaintiffs argued that the jury’s decision was perverse and should be set aside. It was said that all the evidence clearly showed that the defendant had publish

The High Court has refused an Article 40.4 application brought by a man who was committed to prison after he failed to deliver up possession of a property in accordance with a 2019 court order. The court held that the applicant had been detained in accordance with law and that the more appropriate c

A tribunal has found against the Department of Finance for twice refusing to backdate an appellant’s Disabled Person's Allowance. The tribunal found that the Department's repeated and categorical refusal was an unfair misstatement of the law. The Northern Ireland Valuation Tribunal (NIVT) reli

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the offence of sexual exploitation of a child is a standalone offence and does not require proof that the child was trafficked. The question arose following the acquittal of two men accused of sexual exploitation, who had argued that the offence only applied in the

The High Court has dismissed a challenge to the constitutionality of the voting system for the Seanad by a graduate of the University of Limerick. The plaintiff claimed that it was unconstitutional that graduates from the University of Dublin (TCD) and the National University of Ireland (NUI) could

The High Court has dismissed a claim for indemnity and contribution made by defendants against Sligo County Council in a fatal road traffic case. The accident occurred after a HGV driver fell asleep behind the wheel and hit a highway maintenance crew at high speed, resulting in death and severe inju

The High Court has quashed a decision of the Children Court to retain jurisdiction of a sexual assault case against a child defendant. The trial judge had decided to hear the sexual assault case pursuant to the provisions of section 75 of the Children Act 2001 despite the fact that the child was als

Northern Ireland's Crown Court has ruled that a "self-centred" murderer with 51 prior convictions will not be eligible for parole for at least 21 years. The court examined the violence of the murder, and the state of the defendant, determining that both were aggravating factors, which warranted exte

The High Court has refused an application for judicial review brought by a solicitor seeking to have her WRC hearing resume after the adjudicator determined the case would have need a fresh hearing. The matter had been part-heard when the Supreme Court delivered its landmark judgment in Zalewski v.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has upheld an EU Commission decision to fine Google €2.4 billion for breaches of competition law. It was held that Google had abused a dominant position in the European market by favouring its own comparison shopping service over competing compa

An asylum seeker who feared being kidnapped and chained has been granted a fresh decision by Northern Ireland's High Court after an "unfair" and "irrelevant" ruling by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The applicant, a citizen of Somalia, successfully challenged the Home Office decisio

The High Court has granted an injunction by a mortgagee in possession to remove a family from a property which was previously their family home. In reaching this decision, the court held that the defendants had not raised any credible evidence that they were entitled to stay in the property. In defe