Set Aside Of Default Judgments

Introduction

Irish rules on service of proceedings mandate specific steps to be taken to formally serve proceedings on defendants. In the ordinary course, once proceedings are issued, the plaintiff must seek to serve the defendant pursuant to these rules and the defendant must then take steps on foot of service. However, in certain instances it may be impossible to effect service by availing of the ordinary methods, in which case it is possible to apply to the court to sanction service by a substitute means. A recent case1 has considered such substituted service and offers useful guidance where the defendant seeks to have the substituted service and any default judgment obtained on foot of it set aside.

Facts

The defendant sought to set aside a €7 million judgment granted against him in default of appearance. In essence, he claimed that he had not received the summary summons after it had been served by ordinary pre-paid post pursuant to an order for substituted service. That order permitted the plaintiff to serve the defendant by ordinary pre-paid post at an address in County Meath. At no point after service of the summons were the documents returned to the plaintiff's solicitors. The defendant claimed that he became aware of the judgment (and service) only when enforcement steps were pursued by the plaintiff.

Although the plaintiff's position was that it had served the proceedings precisely in accordance with the order for substituted service it had obtained, the defendant also sought to set aside that order on the basis that the information as to the residence of the defendant was incorrect. The defendant claimed that:

the address in question was not his residence: he did not reside there and never had; and he did not own the house there and never had. As part of the enforcement steps, the plaintiff's solicitors delivered papers regarding discovery and an examination of the defendant to the address in question, which were returned along with a cover letter from the occupant (the defendant's brother-in-law) stating that the defendant did not live there and did not receive the letters which had been sent there. On foot of that, the plaintiff's solicitor brought this to the attention of the court and sought an alternative method to serve the defendant.

As part of its steps regarding enforcement, the plaintiff had also secured a garnishee order requiring a judgment debtor of the defendant to pay the moneys due to the plaintiff. Solicitors...