Judicial Quotes

“An honourable compromise in any case is far preferable to a futile stand on principle.” MacMenamin J. Retired Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland

” I pause at this stage to say, and repeat, that it was quite wrong of Mr. Friedman, on any view, to have called Mr. Fogliacco, and it is absurd, if it is the case, that the penny only dropped during the call that there might be a confidentiality problem. It is in this paragraph that Mr. Friedman acknowledged that the words “Meade’s office leaks like a sieve” did not come from Mr. Fogliacco but from an impressionistic appreciation of what Mr. Fogliacco might have had to do to get to know the result. I have already said that none of that was supportable. Mr. Friedman said that he was surprised that Mr. Moss would feel compelled to draw the whole episode to the court’s attention. I do not understand his surprise. It seems to me obvious that anybody acting with integrity would expect that that had to happen.” Mr. Justice Meade

“In common with the authorities cited there must be a strong suggestion, and I will put it no further, that there were intentional failures of disclosure which may well be tantamount to deceit on the part of Mr. Hughes in relation to the transaction as a whole.” Mr. Justice John MacMenamin retired Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland

“All courts are familiar with the litigant, often an unrepresented litigant, who will never take “no” for an answer, however unpromising his/her cause. Under the new appeals regime, however, such litigants must appreciate that the general rule will be that the decision of the appeal court on the first appeal will be the final decision. If they wish to pursue the matter further, and to incur the often quite heavy costs involved in paying the court fee and preparing the appeal papers, the Court of Appeal may dismiss their application quite shortly, saying that the appeal raises no important point of principle or practice, and that there is no other compelling reason for the court to hear the appeal…. judges of the quality of Lords Justices of Appeal were a scarce and valuable resource, and that it was important that they were used effectively and only on work which was appropriate to them (Review of the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), pp 10, 26 and 22). ” Lord Justice Brooke

“… that for a person in a position of trust, holding himself out as a responsible and honourable practitioner, to take monies in this way from the persons who had entrusted them to him attracts the gravest of disapprobation. The learned sentencing judge described the appellant’s conduct as dishonourable in the extreme, and the consequent criminality as being high. I agree with this characterisation which his Honour put upon the appellant’s conduct. For solicitors, accountants, or any persons in a position of trust, to betray that trust has traditionally been regarded by the courts as attracting grave disapprobation, accompanied by substantial sentences.”(emphasis added) Chief Justice, Sir Laurence Street

“Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quae recedit a litera” Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (1618–21), lawyer, statesman, philosopher (If we depart from the letter, we are not interpreting the law, but guessing at the law.)

“My function is to interpret the law” Judge Marie Quirke of Dublin District Court, Law Society of Ireland council member, solicitor

“One could imagine a circumstance, which is not this case, in which the wishes of two antagonistic defendants to put forward their own experts was driven by a desire to obfuscate, by putting up two witnesses with different methodologies and approaches, their purpose being to confuse what might otherwise be a clear case against them, and to throw dust in the eye of the court. In such a case the court would be perfectly entitled to direct a single joint expert irrespective of the conflict between those parties. The example also illustrates that the court or Tribunal is right and entitled to look at the matter from the point of view of the judges who will try the case, and not simply from the point of view of the parties. “ Lord Birss (who was first England and Wales Court of Appeal judge to admit having used ChatGPT-generated content in a judgement saying he found it “Jolly useful” Source: The Law Gazette, 14 September 2023. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/solicitor-condemns-judges-for-staying-silent-on-woeful-reforms/5117228.article
Perhaps the “dust” metaphor can be traced to Sir Birss’ Cambridge University first class honours degree in metallurgy and material sciences.

“Injustice comes from abuse of power, judicial power included, as well as from failure to exercise it.” Lord Justice Stephenson

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“There is always in litigation a margin of error, representing error in factfinding, which both parties must take into account. Where one party has at stake an interest of transcending value – as a criminal defendant his liberty – this margin of error is reduced as to him by the process of placing on the other party the burden … of persuading the fact finder at the conclusion of the trial of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Justice Brennan of the United States Supreme Court

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There is always in litigation a margin of error, representing error in factfinding, which both parties must take into account. Where one party has at stake an interest of transcending value – as a criminal defendant his liberty – this margin of error is reduced as to him by the process of placing on the other party the burden … of persuading the fact finder at the conclusion of the trial of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

“To allow recovery in these cases would be to allow recovery for what is illegal. It would put the courts in the position of saying that the same conduct is both legal, in the sense of being capable of rectification by the court, and illegal. It would, in short, introduce an inconsistency in the law. It is particularly important in this context that we bear in mind that the law must aspire to be a unified institution, the parts of which — contract, tort, the criminal law — must be in essential harmony. For the courts to punish conduct with the one hand while rewarding it with the other, would be to create an intolerable fissure in the law’s conceptually seamless web…We thus see that the concern, put at its most fundamental, is with the integrity of the legal system.” McLachlin J.

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” The law is, indeed, always an imperfect and inadequate human division into compartments of the divine concept of justice. It is, to say the least, unlikely that an individual would willingly submit to a given injury on being offered a sum of money which might be thought commensurate with such an injury when damages came to be assessed by a jury. Equally well, it would be poor consolation to the injured individual to be given the opportunity of inflicting the self-same injury on the person who had injured him.” Niall McCarthy (25 May 1925 – 2 October 1992) Irish Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland from 1982 to 1992. ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_McCarthy_(judge)

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“On the contrary, if one adopts that old principle that ‘actions speak louder than words’ Heslin J

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“More significantly however, there was not a single shred of evidence to support the defendant’s hypothesis that the plaintiff or her solicitors had deliberately suppressed the second accident. Undeterred by this, counsel for the defendant accused the plaintiff of Perjury, a very serious criminal offence, and her solicitors of fraud, an accusation that could hardly be more serious for an officer of the court and one that would leave the solicitor concerned, were it true, potentially open to the most severe sanctions up to and including the loss of his or her livelihood. “

Noonan J

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“…also complains, in effect, that he should have to pay for receiving his solicitor’s advice. This is because of his apparent belief that a solicitor should act unquestioningly on his client’s instructions once given and that any advice tendered thereafter is not to be paid for. But that is to reduce a solicitor to the role of unthinking flunkey; and this is not a role that a solicitor is ever expected to play. Of course, there comes a time when a solicitor, for so long as s/he continues to act for a client, must act in accordance with that client’s lawful instructions, but in practice a solicitor is often obliged as a competent professional to urge his or her client to pursue an alternative course of action from that settled or embarked upon by a client, when the solicitor sees that the alternative course of action will better protect the client’s legal interests. Patently, such legal advice must be paid for. If Mr H did not wish to pay for listening to his solicitor’s advice, it was always open to him to cease to engage his solicitor. “

Barrett J.

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It is debatable that spending outrageous sums of a clients monies on fighting a case without ascertaining how much it would cost to settle it (possibly at a fraction of such legal costs) could be deemed to be ” protect the client’s legal interests ” unless say a client was availing of tax deductions/ write offs for such legal costs such that the net cost to them was inconsequential to them – an area of law as yet unexplored in Irish Jurisprudence.

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Lord Denning ” It is a very old principle laid down by Lord Coke that a man shall not be allowed take advantage of a condition brought about by himself.”