Meath residents fail to secure early strike-out of developer’s €8m claim against them

Two Co Meath residents have failed in their bid to have a developer’s €8 million damages claim against them struck out before a full trial.

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said on Monday that Glenveagh Homes’s legal action could proceed against Pat Lynch and Denise Leavy, both of Batterstown, Proudstown, Navan.

The firm alleges the pair unlawfully abused the statutory planning process to interfere with its business with the “predominant purpose of leveraging an improved bargain” for Mr Lynch in his bid to obtain better terms in selling 16 acres of his land to Glenveagh.

Mr Lynch and Ms Leavy, a retired banking official, strongly deny all of the claims against them.

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Last week the court heard their application seeking to have the case against them dismissed before trial as they argued it is an abuse of process, bound to fail and amounts to strategic litigation against public participation (slapp).

Glenveagh denies its case is slapp or designed to intimate. Rather, it contends, it responds to the defendants’ use of “fictitious aliases” to make submissions and appeals “highly targeted” at Glenveagh projects.

Mr Justice Humphreys asked whether the parties felt he needed to deliver a judgment explaining his reasoning for determining the case should not be struck out at this stage. Both sides said they would take instructions on the questions.

Niall Handy SC, instructed by Amoss, for Glenveagh, added that he believed his client would likely want a judgment on its successful defence of the application.

The judge encouraged the parties to see whether their differences could be bridged rather than exacerbated. He said every once in a while “one gets a sense that the world would be a better place if everyone can agree on things”.

However, the court is here to deal with issues, he added, as he adjourned the case to April 15th.

In its action, Glenveagh says “Denis Leavy”, “D Leavy”, “DM Leavy” and Mr Lynch filed 17 observations and five appeals of Glenveagh applications between March 2021 and June 2023, most of which concern proposed developments outside the defendants’ locality.

The defendants’ “campaign of tortious interference” has led to “considerable, unexpected difficulty” delivering residential schemes in counties Meath, Dublin, Louth, Westmeath, Kildare and Waterford, said Glenveagh’s chief executive, Stephen Garvey, in an affidavit.

The developer had a little earlier refused to buy Mr Lynch’s Co Meath lands for a price “well in excess of open-market value” but later reached an agreement in principle for a price of €7.8 million, Mr Garvey added.

In a sworn statement, Mr Lynch said he and Ms Leavy “wholly rejected” the developer’s “entirely groundless” claim. He said he believed some of Glenveagh’s planning applications were not satisfactory and would be unsustainable if built.

The objections were made with “no vexatious intent” and per planning laws, he added.

Ms Leavy, in her affidavit, said she owned one acre of land near Mr Lynch’s and the price offered by Glenveagh for the lands was acceptable but negotiations had broken down. She denied submissions or appeals had been used to negotiate a higher price for their land and took “grave exception” to the claim she had used a false identity.

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