A young man orphaned at the age of four after his parents and six-year-old brother died in a car crash is seeking damages at the High Court against a solicitor after a delay in bringing his legal action for compensation resulted in the action being halted because it was brought outside the legal time limits.
In proceeding against solicitor Kevin Brophy, practising at Parliament Street, Dublin, Seán Yardley (19) alleged the failure by Mr Brophy, his servants or agents to bring proceedings for damages under the Civil Liability Act within the statutory two-year time limit resulted in his proposed action being halted and his suffering financial loss as a result.
He is seeking damages, including damages for the cost of raising and caring for him since he lost his parents and brother in November 1992.
Liability has been admitted and the case proceeded yesterday before Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill to assess what damages are payable. After considering submissions by both sides, including actuarial evidence, the judge said he would rule on the matter today.
The court heard Mr Yardley was aged four and was living with his parents, Ann and Stephen, and his six-year-old brother, Alex, in Essex in 1992. The family sold their house that year and decided to relocate to Ireland. On November 28th, 1992, they were driving to Dublin, having arrived in Rosslare earlier by ferry, when the crash occurred near Gorey.
Stephen, Ann and Alex Yardley died. Seán was taken to hospital but survived. He was subsequently reared for a time by both his grandmothers, his maternal grandmother living in Glasthule, Co Dublin. His paternal grandmother was in Australia on holiday at the time of the crash but rushed home and subsequently sold her home in England. She then bought a house in Glasthule.
Mr Yardley told the judge he had lived with his paternal grandmother, Rosalind Yardley, in Glasthule until he was about five or six, then they moved back to Bromley in Kent where he went to school.
He is now pursuing a physics degree at University College, London, where he lives in rented accommodation. He continues to see his grandmother, now 71 and in ill health.
Counsel for Mr Yardley told the court that Mr Brophy's firm was instructed in 1994 to bring proceedings for compensation on his behalf arising from the crash.
The proceedings were brought in 1995 against a party sued in a representative capacity for Mr Yardley's father whose alleged negligence, it was claimed, caused the crash. A defence to those proceedings denied negligence by Stephen Yardley and also pleaded the case was statute-barred.
The High Court later ruled that the proceedings were statute-barred.
In his judgment on that issue, Mr Justice Daniel Herbert said it appeared the sole reason the plenary summons was issued outside the two-year time limit was because a person in Mr Brophy's firm appeared to be unfamiliar with the shorter two-year limitation period for such cases rather than the three-year norm.