The wife of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn has been ordered to repay more than €3 million to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo, after a judge ruled today she had no defence to the bank's claim.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly rejected arguments by Patricia Quinn that she was not obliged to repay the €3 million loan made jointly to herself and her husband in late 2006 on grounds she is a homemaker, and unduly influenced by her husband who regularly signed documents he put in front of her without reading them.
Having dismissed those and other arguments, he entered summary judgment for €3,059,951 plus costs against Mrs Quinn, and also refused her lawyer's application for a stay on his order.
Since the since the middle of the 18th century, the law allowed for no presumption of undue influence between a wife and husband, and there was also no actual evidence of undue influence by Mr Quinn over Mrs Quinn, such as bullying behaviour, Mr Justice Kelly said.
The judge quoted from another High Court judge, the late Miss Justice Mella Carroll, who had said in another case 25 years ago, the day was long past when married women could be classified akin to infants and persons of unsound mind and evade liability by arguing they were only concerned with minding their house and children.
He rejected Mrs Quinn's other claims of a defence on grounds she did not understand what she was signing and did not benefit from the €3 million loan. The truth is, he said, Mrs Quinn gave no thought to what she was signing but that could not be a defence.
What could be more negligent than "willy-nilly" signing legal documents without any thought to their nature and effect?, the judge asked. Even a glance at these documents would have made clear to all but the illiterate they related to a borrowing transaction, he added.
In this case, the couple were joint borrowers of the €3 million, and Mr Quinn was entitled to direct that the bank pay the monies to an account of Quinn Manufacturing Ltd. It was no concern of the bank's what happened to the monies after they were drawn down.
When there are joint borrowings, there is always the possibility that one borrower can use the funds at issue without the other borrower benefiting, he noted.
IBRC, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, had sought the summary judgment order against Mrs Quinn, with an address at Greaghrahan, Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, over an unpaid loan made to herself and Mr Quinn in late 2006. Summary judgment was previously entered against Mr Quinn.
The bank claimed the loan was to go towards final decorative costs for the Quinn's home at Ballyconnell but the court heard Mr Quinn had directed the money be paid into an account of Quinn Manufacturing Ltd.
IBRC had rejected Mrs Quinn's claims of a defence, and also argued, while she disputed the bank's description of her as a "business lady", she had been a director of 63 Quinn group companies in the Republic, 28 Quinn companies in the UK and secretary of about ten companies.
Mrs Quinn had also claimed she only realised "very recently" she was a customer of Anglo. While accepting she had a practice over many years of signing documents when asked to do so by her husband or his colleagues in the Quinn group, she said she was never informed about the nature or impact of the documents. "This is embarrassing to admit but it is the truth," she said in an affidavit.
